Ben’s appeal for 24/7 cardiac care
NEARBY HELICOPTER RUSHED BEN TO CORK BUT FEARS REMAIN FOR LOCAL CARDIAC PATIENTS’ LIVES
BEN BENSON’S life was saved only by a combination of good fortune and quick thinking when he suffered a heart attack at his Saltmills home recently.
VINCENT (Ben) Benson, of Benson Fuels, was working in his yard recently when he took ill.
Ben is now appealing to the Government to finance 24/7 cardiac care in University Hospital Waterford. ‘ There are people dead today and they shouldn’t be. I am alive because people made the right decision at the right time.
BEN BENSON’S life was saved only by a combination of good fortune and quick thinking when he suffered a heart attack at his Saltmills home recently.
Vincent (Ben) Benson, of Benson Fuels, was working in the yard on September 30 when he took ill. ‘I was out getting Ready Mix concrete ready with my brother-in-law. I said I wasn’t feeling great and I felt a pain up my left arm. At 8.30 a.m. I came up from the yard and I was pumping sweat and yet I was absolutely freezing with the cold. Robert said he would bring me to the doctor. I laid down on the ground and Eugene rang 999. They got an ambulance from Waterford and they came across on the ferry. I the meantime someone got a defibrillator from Talaught. They rang Dominick Power and the ambulance put me on a drip.’
The ambulance took 29 minutes to arrive from Waterford. ‘We thought it was 90 minutes. They were all working together and they made a decision to contact either Cork or Dublin and Cork accepted me. The ambulance men said if they were to drive me I wouldn’t make it. It’s good because I’m here today to talk about it.
‘Luckily for me the helicopter wasn’t that far away. They decided to land it in a big field over the road. They put me in an ambulance and brought me 600 yards to the field and I was told the helicopter would come from Wateford within minutes.’
When Ben arrived the helicopter was waiting for him.
‘ They wheeled me over and put me onto the helicopter. As we were going down the land the paramedics said I was having a heart attack. They saved my life. They said it took 20 minutes to get to Cork but it felt like 20 hours to me.’
When he arrived at Cork University Hospital Ben got three stents put in. ‘I was too weak. Noone ever told me I had a partly blocked artery.’
While in bed Ben was informed by his doctor that he would be sent to Wexford General Hospital, once an ambulance became available. That was on the Sunday. ‘ The following morning I was told I’d be going to Wexford, but there was no ambulance. The doctor told me I could be there up to six days waiting. Then, at 3 p.m., a fella said they were bringing me to Wexford General Hospital.’
When they arrived Ben was told he would have to enter through the Accident & Emergency Department. ‘ The ambulance driver tought this strange. We arrived at the back door and the man there said he shouldn’t be leaving us in but that he would. This was a few days after I had almost died. The ambulance driver said to me “You left your fancy room in Cork to come down to this.’
Ben was placed on a trolley in the hall.
‘It was like lambs going to the slaughter. They put me on this broken down trolley. I wanted a cup of tea and I needed to take my tablets. A nurse said she would get a doctor to see me and I would be sent home. She got me my tea and a gluten free sandwich and two tablets. She said she was going to send me home and when then I was informed I shouldn’t be sent home.’
Ben had to ask the doctor to write a prescription for him. ‘Years ago there is no way they would let you out without tablets, a prescription or someone to look after you.’
Ben said a follow up meeting should have been arranged and some advice offered.
‘I couldn’t do what I was told to do because I was never told. I had my dog at the vets in Wellingtonbridge and I left with a full page of instructions as to what to do with him and I got nothing. My blood pressure was in double figures when I went to the doctors in Duncannon having been released from the hospital. I am a coeliac. The doctor didn’t believe me.’
Ben went to Cork on October 22nd and another three stents were put in.
‘It was a shock that I needed more stents put in. Margaret almost had a heart attack when I was told by the doctor that I had a partially blocked artery and I, having spent the previous few weeks doing some work in the yard. I could’ve dropped. There was no communication about the stents.’
Ben appealed to the Government to finance 24/7 cardiac care in University Hospital Waterford. ‘ There are people dead today and they shouldn’t be. I am alive because people made the right decision at the right time. I am in great order at the moment. I’m trying to see a man for my diabetes. If I don’t get my bloods down I will have another heart attack.’
Ben praised the nurses in Cork and Wexford, describing them as ‘absolutely super’.
A mobile unit for treating heart patients in Waterford, promised by the Government in response to local anger over cardiac facilities in the southeast, arrived in the city in September.
The mobile catheterisation lab caters for 30-45 patients a week, for a period of 20 weeks, at a cost of about €1 million.
The lab is expected to ‘completely clear’ waiting lists for patients requiring diagnostic angiography while on site at University Hospital Waterford.
The lab will not provide emergency cardiac care.
Since the idea of the mobile lab was mooted, over 300 Waterford patients have been treated in public and private hospitals in Cork under an outsourcing initiative of the local hospital group.
As a result, the maximum waiting time has been cut to under 12 months. Thirty per cent of people who were offered appointments in Cork turned them down. Waterford is only one of seven major cardiac services to operate daytime hours only. The absence of a nighttime service in the southeast means emergency patients have to be brought by ambulance, or helicopter when available, to Dublin or Cork.
A cath lab is where angiograms are performed, along with scheduled and emergency stenting.
An Ireland East Hospital Group spokesperson said: ‘We cannot comment on individual patients. When a consultant and bed manager require a patient to be transferred to another hospital, they are required to call the recipient hospital and speak with the bed manager and the consultant to ensure that a bed is available prior to transport of the patient. If a call is not made prior to the transport of a patient or if a bed is not available at the recipient hospital when a patient is sent from another hospital, the patient will be received and medically assessed through the Emergency Department.
‘Regarding broken trolleys, all trolleys are regularly serviced at Wexford General Hospital. Faulty trolleys are taken out of service once staff are made aware. An orderly or security personnel assigned to the Emergency Department check trolleys on a daily basis.’