Patsy Dee, 55, claims she and dozens of other patients witnessed an elderly man who had been waiting on a trolley die in front of them at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital
A mother-of-three who spent 12 hours lying on a trolley in an AE corridor claims she and dozens of other patients witnessed an elderly man dying in front of them.
Patsy Dee, who has stage three heart failure, was rushed to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon on Sunday at 9.30pm after experiencing chest pains.
The 55-year-old, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, claims about 25 people watched a man in his eighties die as he lay on a trolley in the central aisle of a crowded emergency room at about midnight.
The Great Western Hospital confirmed a ‘thorough investigation’ into the death is already underway, but said it was not appropriate to speculate until the full facts were known.
It comes amid a deepening NHS crisis, with the Royal College of Physicians warning that lives were being put at risk in ‘over-full hospitals’.
Figures released earlier this week show that over 18,000 patients were left stranded on trolleys in the last week alone because of a lack of beds.
Ms Dee, who says she was forced to wait on a trolley in a corridor for 12 hours after witnessing the traumatic incident, said: ‘The whole experience was absolutely horrendous. No one should die in front of everyone like that.
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‘I had literally walked past the man the minute before it happened, and as I did I caught his eye. I nearly stopped and went up to him because he looked so ill, but I thought I would be told I wasn’t qualified to help.
‘He was very elderly and frail and he looked to be in his eighties – he wasn’t saying anything or asking for help, but I could tell he was very poorly.
‘I don’t know how long he had been there, but in the time I was there I didn’t see anyone come up and talk to him.
‘A minute later, he must have died as the doctors suddenly rushed him into the resuscitation area and started pumping his chest. It was like a scene out of a movie.
She continued: ‘It was disgusting he should die on a trolley in the room in front of everyone – there is no dignity in that and for it to happen in front of everyone was just awful.
The Great Western Hospital (pictured) confirmed a ‘thorough investigation’ into the death is already underway
Ms Dee, who claims she was forced to wait on a trolley in a corridor for 12 hours after witnessing the traumatic incident in the emergency room, said she was disgusted the man had died ‘without dignity’
‘About 25 people in the room would have witnessed him dying and everyone in the room could see what was happening in the resuscitation room each time the door opened.
‘Everyone deserves to die with dignity, but his death wasn’t dignified in any way. I think they should have given him space in a cubicle at least.
‘He was probably someone’s grandad, someone’s dad – it could happen to anyone.’
Ms Dee, who suffers from heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, was diagnosed with stage three heart failure in November and recently had her sixth pacemaker fitted.
MP’S FATHER ‘DIED IN HIS ARMS’ AFTER HOSPITAL SENT HIM HOME
Labour MP Toby Perkins has told how his father ‘died in his arms’ after being sent home from a busy AE department because there were not enough beds
An MP has told how his father ‘died in his arms’ after being sent home from an AE department because there were not enough beds.
Labour MP Toby Perkins said his father went to Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital suffering from ‘extreme pain’ and showing signs of an aneurysm.
But despite having suffered from a near fatal aneurysm three years earlier, he was sent in a taxi home – one of several sick patients sent home prematurely that day because doctors didn’t have enough resources to cope.
Speaking about his father’s ordeal during a Commons debate, Mr Perkins said: ‘Last year on Friday July 15 my father died of an aneurysm.
‘Four days earlier he had been sent home from the AE department at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital with what a vascular surgeon described at my father’s inquest as classical aneurysm symptoms.
‘With a history of vascular problems and a previous near-fatal aneurysm, he presented at the hospital’s AE department suffering extreme pain in his right groin radiating to side and back.
‘He was described as being confused and uncommunicative. And yet, after five hours in AE, he was sent home in a taxi. Four days later he died in my arms.’
While mistakes were made in his father’s care, Mr Perkins said the failings were due to the strain NHS casualty departments up and down the country are facing.
Recounting the registrar’s response to questioning at his father’s inquest, Mr Perkins said: ‘He said how it was non-stop on that Friday afternoon, particularly busy.
‘From one case to another he was constantly having to decide, as he did most days, which sick patient, all of whom needed to be in a hospital bed, to send home this time.
‘He said there simply aren’t enough beds for those who need to be in them, so every day we have to make these choices.’
Mr Perkins said England’s NHS spending lags behind Germany and France’s, and patients are not getting the care their European neighbours do.
The MP added: ‘I’m ashamed to say that I’m grateful my father had his first life-threatening aneurysm on holiday in Germany.
‘The quality of the emergency care he received in Munich saved his life and gave us, his family, three more years with him. I regret last year the same could not be said of our NHS.’
He said the NHS is in the midst of a crisis that ‘means people being sent home from AE to die’.
A spokeswoman for the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said: ‘We would like to apologise to Mr Perkins and his family for the distress caused on the death of his father.
‘Although the inquest found his father died of natural causes, we are clear that he should not have been discharged without a scan and we have changed our practice so that where there is a suspected aneurysm, as there was with his father, a scan will be done to rule it out in the first instance.
‘We have also increased training for the surgical teams who see patients in the emergency department. While we acknowledge this is too late for his father we hope it provides some comfort to Mr Perkins and his family.’
She began experiencing chest pains and pins and needles in her jaw on Sunday evening and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance.
She said when she got there she waited on a chair in a cubicle in an emergency room for four hours before being moved to a trolley, where she remained in a corridor for 12 hours while awaiting test results.
Ms Dee said she was then transferred to a bed on one of the hospital’s wards but spent only an hour there before she was discharged.
The mother-of-three claims there were about 12 trolleys in an aisle in the middle of the emergency room, one of which was occupied by the elderly man in his eighties.
She said when the man’s condition appeared to suddenly deteriorate at around midnight he was rushed into a separate room – where doctors’ resuscitation attempts were visible to the waiting patients each time the doors opened.
She said another patient later told her the man had passed away.
It comes amid a deepening NHS crisis, with the Royal College of Physicians warning that lives were being put at risk in ‘over-full hospitals’
Ms Dee said: ‘Some of the people there that night had been waiting for emergency treatment for 13 hours.
‘There were between 20 and 30 people there – everyone waiting on the trolleys in the aisle in the middle of the room, the people in the cubicles and their families.
‘The whole situation was really upsetting. Shortly after the old man was taken into resuscitation, someone told one of the other patients sat near me that he had passed away.
‘I don’t know what the old man’s name was or what was wrong with him. Apparently his family had been there earlier in the evening but had to leave.
‘I’m not blaming the staff in any way – they were fantastic – the hospital just didn’t have the room for everyone.
‘THERE IS AN NHS CRISIS AND I AM LIVING IT RIGHT NOW’
Keziah Maizey, 37, was left waiting for 15 hours at the University Hospital Wales without being offered a bed
A GP has spoken out about the ‘dangerous’ NHS crisis after waiting 15 hours without being offered a bed.
Keziah Maizey, 37, from Cardiff, went to the AE at University Hospital Wales on Tuesday evening, after half her face became paralysed and she felt weakness in an arm and a leg.
The GP was left waiting in a chair for 15 hours when she posted on Facebook: ‘There is an NHS crisis and I am living it right now.’
The mother-of-two said that after being admitted, there were not enough beds and there wasn’t even a place for her to sit down.
She waited six hours before she was given painkillers.
She said: ‘There weren’t enough chairs for me to sit on even with paralysis. When I did get one, my husband had to sit on the floor next to me for hours as nowhere else to go.
‘Sat in a cubicle-sized space with seven other people for a while squeezed in like cattle. When I was moved to be examined I went to sit back in a chair and someone else was now sat there.’
When Dr Maizey asked nurses where she could sit down, they assumed her slur was due to drink and not paralysis.
She said: ‘When I asked nursing staff where could I sit they assumed I was drunk because of my slurred speech and wobbly walk and told me they were busy and not to bother them.’
Taking to social media on Wednesday morning, Dr Maizey said she had been in the department 15 hours and had still not been offered a bed.
She said: ‘There are no beds or trolleys.I have been sat in a chair for the whole time. Six hours it took to get painkillers.
‘There are people everywhere writhing in pain, vomiting. Trolleys lined up in the corridors with frail elderly confused people shouting.
‘This is the reality of our current emergency healthcare. I am here in it right now and it is frankly dangerous and cruel.’
Steve Curry, interim chief operating officer at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said: ‘As with all hospitals, the University Hospital of Wales is currently experiencing a high patient demand within its Urgent and Emergency Assessment Units.
‘Unfortunately, this has resulted in longer waiting times for some patients – for which we apologise.
‘In response to increasing demand, and in accordance with the health board’s winter plan, we have opened additional hospital bed capacity to cope with this pressure.
‘Although our assessment units are extremely busy, we can assure patients and their families that the service is safe and adequately staffed.’
‘I don’t think he was being ignored, people were just so busy and the staff were run ragged, but would people have realised how ill he was if he had been monitored properly?’
A spokesman for Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Great Western Hospital, said: ‘We have a duty to protect patient confidentiality and as such are unable to provide further information.
‘However, as is standard procedure with all hospital deaths, a thorough investigation to determine what happened is already underway.
‘It is therefore not appropriate to speculate at this early stage until the full facts are known.
‘What’s clear is that like other hospitals across the country, demand for our services has been unprecedented in recent weeks, which is proving a genuine challenge for hospitals like ours.
‘We continue to do all we can to see patients as quickly as possible to give them the treatment they may need.’
It comes as NHS managers are drafting in GPs to help discharge patients as hospitals continue to be overwhelmed with people needing care.
Figures from November show trolley waits of over four hours after a decision has been made to admit the patient came to 52,769, the second highest figure on record.
Trolley waits of over 12 hours totalled 456, again the second highest figure on record.
TWO HOURS IN FREEZING COLD: 82-YEAR-OLD LEFT LYING IN ROAD
Reg Nurse, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was left lying on a road for two hours in the freezing cold while waiting for an ambulance
An 82-year-old man was left lying in a road for two hours in the freezing cold while waiting for an ambulance.
Reg Nurse, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, tripped and fell as he left his home, smashing his pelvis.
His shocked friends moved him into a garage after wrapping him in blankets and sleeping bags as temperatures plunged below zero.
A paramedic told them their actions had saved Mr Nurse as he was rushed to Weston General Hospital.
Kevin Thomas, who has known Mr Nurse for over 20 years, said ‘There’s absolutely no excuse for an 82-year-old being left out in the road like that.
‘If Reg had been left out there any longer he could have got pneumonia and died.’
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) has blamed the massive delay on other ‘time-critical’ emergency calls in Weston at the time.
The incident happened at about 5.40pm on January 2. Mr Nurse had been visiting friends when he stumbled while using his walking frame.
The pensioner lay in pain in the road before his friends decided to risk moving him as the thermometer plummeted.
Mr Thomas said his friend had remained ‘in good spirits’ throughout his ordeal.
But he said he deteriorated rapidly once he was put inside the ambulance after being left waiting for two hours.
An ambulance service spokesman said they have launched an urgent investigation into the incident.
He said: ‘We are sorry to learn of this patient’s experience.
‘Between the time the initial call was made and when the ambulance arrived, there were several time-critical life-threatening emergency calls in Weston and we need to prioritise patients who are unconscious and not breathing.
‘As there are only a finite number of resources with which to respond to incidents, there are occasions when people wait longer for an ambulance than we would like and this is an example where this has happened.’
NHS England chief Simon Stevens blasted Theresa May on Wednesday for claiming the Government had given the health service more money than it had requested.
He said an extra £10 billion was being made available to NHS England over the course of six years but overall the health service had ‘got less’ than set out in its five-year plan.
Mrs May appeared to take a swipe at him at the weekend when she said the Government had given the NHS more money than it needed.
She said: ‘We asked the NHS a while back to set out what it needed over the next five years in terms of its plan for the future and the funding that it would need.
‘They did that, we gave them that funding, in fact we gave them more funding than they required. So funding is now at record levels for the NHS, more money has been going in.’
Amid the growing crisis, hospital chiefs have listed some of the needless reasons for people going to AE.
These included visiting stretched hospital departments for toothache, coughs and repeat prescription requests.
The Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent, took to social media to urge those with minor ailments and problems to find alternatives, rather than going to AE.
‘I COUNTED NINE PEOPLE ON TROLLEYS WAITING TO BE SEEN’
Lucinda Wilcox, 31, said people were lining the corridors on trolleys at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, Wales
The granddaughter of a patient rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack has described the situation in AE as ‘beyond words’.
Lucinda Wilcox, 31, said people were lining the corridors on trolleys at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, south Wales.
She said: ‘I counted nine [people] in the corridor on trolleys waiting to be seen,’ she said. ‘It really was upsetting and eye-opening.
‘The people on the trolleys, some of them were on their own, they were hunched over in the beds. They were coming off the trolleys because obviously they’d been there for so long.’
Cwm Taf University Health Board said there was a ‘high level of demand’ at the hospital.
Miss Wilcox has called on health bosses to spend time in AE departments, which she says are at ‘breaking point’.
Her 86-year-old grandmother was taken to the hospital on Tuesday evening after showing symptoms of a suspected heart attack.
She was seen straight away because of the nature of her condition but others were not so lucky.
Miss Wilcox said she met one woman who had been waiting on a trolley for more than 24 hours.
Miss Wilcox, whose grandmother was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack, described the situation in AE as ‘beyond words’
She noted the nurses and doctors were ‘absolutely fantastic’, adding that she had commented to staff that she could not believe the stress they were working under.
Miss Wilcox said: ‘They said this is normal to us. All we can do is apologise day in, day out to people and try our best to try to deal with the situation we’re faced with.’
In a statement, Cwm Taf University Health Board, said: ‘We continue to manage a high level of demand at both Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil and Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant.
‘The escalation levels are currently between three (severe Pressure) and four (extreme pressure).
‘Although we have plans in place to deal with winter pressures, the public can help us by choosing the appropriate health care service for their needs’.