Beds crisis sees vital cancer op cancelled twice QE hospital blames pressure on A&E
ACANCER patient’s vital surgery was cancelled twice due to a beds crisis at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Philip Rolle was due to have an operation to stop his bowel cancer spreading last week.
But the procedure was put off for the second time last Tuesday – when he was already at the hospital – because no intensive care beds were available for his recovery.
The surgery was cancelled for the same reason last month, with the hospital blaming a huge rise in the number of patients turning up at its A&E department.
Mr Rolle, a 52-year-old accountant from Redditch, refused to leave the QE and called the Post’s sister paper, the Birmingham Mail, from the hospital to tell of his plight.
“Quite simply, the hospital is putting lives at risk because of a lack of beds,” he said. “I cannot be the only cancer patient requiring an intensive care bed following an operation.
“It is absolutely vital that I have this operation because soon the cancer will start spreading and it could potentially become incurable. While they are desperately trying to get this operation done if there are no beds there is not a lot they can do.”
Mr Rolle, who was on the Edgbaston ward for private patients, has undergone a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy but the treatment has not been successful.
“There is an option to move me to a private hospital but I am told the highest standard of intensive care treatment is at the Queen Elizabeth and it would be risky to move me elsewhere,” he added.
A spokesman for University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the QE, said: “We regret that any operation has to be cancelled and acknowledge the distress this can cause to both patients and their relatives.
“This cancellation is a reflection of an unprecedented six per cent rise in attendances to our emergency department, which increases the pressure for beds within the hospital, including intensive care beds.”