Joyce, 82, in 19-hour wait for ambulance
Daughter tells of pensioner’s ordeal after she suffered stroke symptoms
AN OAP with dementia had to wait more than 19 hours for an ambulance – despite suffering symptoms of a stroke.
Frail Joyce Meikle, 82, was unable to lift her leg and became unresponsive after her health worsened overnight on Sunday.
Her daughter Kelli called a GP who came to Joyce’s home in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, at 11.45am on Monday and later called for an ambulance.
But they were left waiting almost 20 hours for an ambulance which finally arrived at 10am on Tuesday.
Joyce, who has vascular dementia, Alzheimer’s and a form of Parkinson’s disease, had previously suffered a small stroke, prompting fears that her condition was extremely serious. The ambulance call was initially logged as non-emergency but the GP later upgraded it to urgent.
Kelli sat with her mum through the night and kept calling the ambulance service but were told crews were “exceptionally busy”.
She said: “We kept calling and calling. They upgraded her and said it would possibly take two hours.”
By 6am the next day, they were still waiting. Kelli said: “At 6.10am, I had to call again. They then asked if I could drive her to hospital but if that was an option I’d have done it.”
Joyce was finally taken to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
The Scottish Ambulance Service apologised for the delay in responding to the calls and said it was a result of “exceptionally high and sustained demand” at the time of the call.