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An Ottawa woman says an emergency department nurse told her “she should have called an ambulance” when she appealed for help getting her stricken husband out of their parked car and into the Montfort Hospital.

Christine McMullan said the nurse told her she could not go outside to help bring someone into the hospital.

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Her husband, Bruce McMullan, 82, the former technical director of the Canadian Opera Company, died of heart failure at the Montfort in early February, one week after the incident.

“This just devastated me, to have this happen to him,” said McMullan, a retired nurse. “Something has to be done.”

A spokeswoman for the Montfort Hospital said McMullan’s complaint is under review. “We cannot publicly comment on … a specific incident, but be assured that we are (taking) this situation very seriously,” Gabrièle Caza-Levert said.

Caza-Levert said the Montfort does not have a policy that prohibits nurses from leaving the hospital to help someone into the emergency department.