Claim: Three die waiting for hospital room

TORONTO, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Three patients waiting for rooms died within 24 hours this week at a crowded Toronto area hospital, a paramedic union leader alleges.

Glenn Fontaine, chairman of Toronto Paramedic Local 416, said the three deaths occurred at Etobicoke General Hospital within a 24-hour span Monday and Tuesday.

One reportedly died after going into cardiac arrest three hours after arriving at the emergency room with chest pains, Fontaine said.

Paramedics call the hospital's back hallway -- where they routinely wait with patients for an emergency room bed -- the "hall of shame," Fontaine said.

Dr. Naveed Mohammad, the hospital's corporate chief of emergency services, denied that patients died in a waiting room or on a stretcher and said emergency room deaths are not uncommon.