My husband Alan died from sepsis after eight hours waiting for an ambulance
Awareness campaign must be backed up by resources or lives will still be lost, warns widow
A GRANDFATHER died of sepsis after having to wait almost eight hours for an ambulance.
As the Government’s new sepsis awareness campaign was launched this week, Alan Humphrey’s bereaved widow June revealed she believed his life may have been saved if he got to hospital sooner.
Electrician Alan, 66, from Bearsden, near Glasgow, died on December 21 from sepsis – two weeks after he was taken to the city’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
June, 67, said: “The damage had been done. The hospital did everything they could but it seems he got there too late.”
She said Alan had been ill for a few days and had gone to his GP.
June said: “I’m not blaming the GP – there was so much Australian flu and the like around at the time. He was diagnosed with gastrointestinal flu and became quite ill.
“The doctor came to see him and rang for an ambulance at 4pm but it was 11.45pm before one arrived.
“I kept phoning but they couldn’t tell me when one would arrive. The first couple of times I called, his condition hadn’t changed. By the third time, they told me he would now be treated as an emergency.
“An hour-and-a-half later, I called again but it was another hour-and-a-quarter before an ambulance arrived.
“He had all the classic signs of sepsis. He had a rapid pulse, was shivering, had a high temperature and rigors.
“When he got to hospital, they gave him four types of antibiotics. They got him stable and he came to but the next day he was so ill they transferred him to the ICU.
“They did everything they could but unfortunately it didn’t work out. The sepsis created a thrombosis in his heart and he had a bleed on the brain. He took a turn for the worse and couldn’t breathe. It was clearly going into his chest.
“It was so rapid. He’d been with our son Chris and our grandchildren a few days before and was fine.”
June added: “I don’t blame the doctor or the hospital. But the ambulance came from the east end of Glasgow. They said they had been out for hours.
“The paramedic said, ‘I’m sorry but I couldn’t do anything about it’. He had to go where he was sent.
“The paramedics didn’t spot it was sepsis because they told me he’d be back out of hospital in three or four days.
“The earlier someone with sepsis is treated, the better the chances are of a good outcome.”
A Scottish Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “We were experiencing an exceptionally high level of demand which meant it took us longer than we would have liked to reach Mr Humphrey. We will contact Mrs Humphrey to apologise and will conduct a full investigation of the circumstances.”
While June is delighted the sepsis campaign has been launched, she said it was “shocking” it had taken until now.
She added: “If we can’t get ambulances out in time, the campaign will not do any good.”
Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar welcomed the sepsis campaign but added: “Without adequate resources, overcoming workforce issues and meeting treatment standards, we will continue to let patients down.”
He added: “This is an unfortunate but sadly not isolated incident. We have seen regular reporting of long ambulance waiting times. This is a direct result of them being underresourced and understaffed. Urgent action is required on that.”