Gran,86, trapped for 8 hours waiting for ambulance
Lilian left in agony on kitchen floor after hip fracture fall
GREAT-gran Lilian Briggs lay on her floor for eight agonising hours as she waited for an ambulance to arrive.
Last night, 86-yearold Lilian’s son Robert demanded urgent action to sort out Scotland’s 999 crisis. He said: “It is inhumane to leave someone lying like that. You wouldn’t do it to a dog.”
THIS shocking photograph shows an 86-year-old lying in agony trapped in her kitchen as she waited eight hours for an ambulance.
Lilian Briggs blacked out on the way to her kitchen and suffered a double fracture to her hip when she collapsed on to the tiled floor.
She was trapped in such an awkward position, and in such pain, her family were unable to move her in fear of causing more harm.
But despite her family dialling 999, an ambulance crew was unable to attend for eight hours.
The case highlights the ongoing scandal of waiting times for ambulances in Scotland – highlighted by the Daily Record over the last two weeks.
Last night Lilian’s son Robert, 60, demanded action to sort out the crisis. He said: “It is inhumane to leave someone lying like that. You wouldn’t do it to a dog.
“Something has got to be done to improve this mess.”
Paramedics’ trade union Unite has already called for urgent action to improve waiting times – demanding that the crisis be declared a “major incident”.
Last week we told how the average ambulance response time had risen to six hours – with many waiting almost four times that long.
And even when patients are picked up, they can wait many hours more in the back of the ambulance outside Scotland’s packed A&E departments.
On Monday, Unite called for eight changes which would help protect patients and staff, including a 30-minute maximum turnaround time from arrival at hospital which would free up paramedics to get back out helping people. The situation has got so bad at the country’s biggest hospital, Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, that the Red Cross has been drafted in to provide emergency food and drink aid to paramedics and patients forced to wait hours before they get into A&E. Yesterday, Lilian’s son Robert told how he and his sister Christine Burtt felt helpless as they waited for eight hours for an ambulance for Lilian, a gran to 10, greatgran to 14 and who has three great-great grandchildren.
Robert, a taxi driver, said: “My mum suffers from Parkinson’s and has had two heart attacks in the past. She also has skin cancer on her face.
“On Monday she blacked out. We think she was heading to the kitchen to answer a call from my sister when it happened.
“When she didn’t get any answer she thought mum was either in the garden or something had happened so she went straight round. She only lives five minutes away.
“When she got there she found my mum on the floor. She was conscious but confused.
“She was lying on the floor with her feet sticking into the hallway and her body in the kitchen between the door and the units. We knew she had either broken her hip or her thigh bone. She also had bruises on her head.”
All Robert and Christine could do was cover her with a blanket and cushion her head.
Robert said: “After she had been lying there for eight hours she was freezing cold and turning blue.”
Robert and Christine had called back the 999 service several times to see what was keeping the ambulance.
“I told them my mum was deteriorating. She was getting more confused and in more pain. I was worried about her Parkinson’s and with her heart history. I told them ‘I hope the ambulance gets here before my mum dies’. But they just kept saying they had more priority cases than my mother.
“The last time my sister phoned she told them if they didn’t get an ambulance she was going to the Daily Record. And, behold, the ambulance arrived within half an hour.” Christine had initially phoned 999 about 1pm with the ambulance finally arriving around 8.45pm. Robert continued: “When the ambulance crew came they gave her two doses of morphine and then they put a shawl under her and used it to help put her on a spinal board.
“I couldn’t fault the paramedics, they were brilliant. The delays are not their fault.”
Twice-widowed Lilian was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and her children do not believe she had to wait at the hospital to get in.
Robert said: “I heard the two ambulance people saying they needed to get her into hospital straight away, in front of anyone else.”
On Tuesday Lilian had a four-hour operation on her fractures but because there is Covid on the ward her family have been unable to visit.
Last night MSPs demanded urgent action to avoid other patients suffering like Lilian.
Labour’s Jackie Bailie said: ”This is such a shocking case I am simply lost for words… it is frankly outrageous that the Cabinet Secretary for Health is doing nothing to improve the position urgently.”
Lib Dem leader Alex ColeHamilton said: “To think someone as frail and vulnerable as her would effectively join the back of the queue for available ambulances underscores how the system is not working.”
The Scottish Ambulance Service said: “While we are limited in what we can say due to patient confidentiality, we are very sorry for the delay in reaching Mrs Briggs after her fall, and we hope that she is recovering after surgery.
“We are experiencing extreme pressure due to hospitals operating at, or near, full capacity and staff abstractions.”
I told them ‘I hope the ambulance gets here before my mum dies’