Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Tom asked if he’d put Angela’s life in jeopardy by having her cared for in Ulster. We just don’t know...
Mum tells how MLAS failed her dying daughter
IT was one of the most powerful moments of this week’s #Wedeservebetter rallies.
Wendy Crawley choked back tears as she told a crowd of more than 1,000 people how her desperately ill daughter was forced to wait seven hours for a doctor in A&E before spending a sleepless night in a chair because no beds were available.
Months into a gruelling course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy for a brain tumour, Angela Crawleysmith lost power in her left-hand side.
She was sent to A&E in the hope this would speed her way through the system.
Wendy said: “It didn’t work like that though. It was such a cruel experience for her and it highlighted everything we know is wrong with the system. We never blamed the hospital staff. Everyone was wonderful.
“But they are working under huge pressure, they are overburdened, over-stretched and underresourced. They wanted to help, but couldn’t.”
Angela, from Bangor, Co Down, was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour last August.
She had just come back to her home in England with her husband Tom after a holiday in Italy. She was 26 weeks pregnant.
Wendy said: “It was just awful timing as this was Angela’s first baby and she couldn’t wait to be a mother.
“She and Tom had been married less than a year, it was heartbreaking.
“The hospitals in England were fantastic. They advised her to wait to have her operation to give the baby a chance.” Doctors performed a
Caesarean on Angela on September 13, 2017 – hours before she had brain surgery. Wendy said: “The baby, Ella, was fine, which was a miracle. “A tiny little bundle at 3lbs 6oz with tubes coming out all over and it was 10 days before Angela could hold her – on her first wedding anniversary.”
Facing the dreadful news she was unlikely to live more than two years, Angela and Tom decided to move home for support and at the end of April her symptoms took a dramatic turn for the worse.
Wendy said: “The doctors said the quickest way to get her back into the system was to go through A&E in the Royal. Tom took her on May 8, and it was a terrible experience for them both. “Angela was in a lot of pain and couldn’t stand up. After seven hours when she finally saw a doctor and got a CAT scan, she was sent to a packed ward and had to wait all night in a chair as there were no beds available. It was cruel and exhausting. She must have been so frightened.
“If our MLAS’ pay had been halted more than 589 days ago, maybe there would have been a bed for my daughter to provide some comfort in all that suffering.”
Angela died on June 28, after a number of weeks at the Marie Curie Hospice in Belfast.
Wendy said: “One of the most heartbreaking moments in all this was when Tom asked me if he’d done the wrong thing by coming to Northern Ireland for Angela’s treatment, if choosing to have her looked after here rather than England had put his wife in jeopardy.
“The reality is, we just don’t know. We need our MLAS back in Stormont, making strong decisions for our health service and supporting our doctors and nurses.
“My daughter, and goodness knows how many others, suffered terribly as a direct result of their inaction.”
All of us, my daughter, and my beautiful granddaughter who turns one in a couple of weeks, deserve much better than that.”irish@mgn.co.uk
BANGOR YESTERDAY