Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Cat and mouse chase lands woman in A&E
A DUNDEE woman tripped on stairs and broke her wrist in a freak accident caused by a game of cat and mouse.
Sheila Murray stumbled and injured herself as she tried to catch a mouse her pet cat Molly had brought into her Kemnay Gardens home.
The cat had brought the mouse into the flat while it was still alive, leaving Sheila trying to retrieve the creature.
She said: “I must have spent about 45 minutes trying to catch the mouse. As I came down the stairs, I missed the last step and fell.”
The 50-year-old said she then had to endure a “nightmare” wait for surgery at Ninewells Hospital to insert a plate in her wrist.
Her operation was postponed, then delayed again, and she was finally discharged 57 hours after being admitted.
Sheila initially went to A&E and was told she would need surgery.
She was given an appointment for Tuesday November 29 but claims she waited 11 hours for her operation.
She said: “I suffer from low blood pressure and it had dropped, so I was feeling pretty awful.
“At 5pm I was told I wouldn’t be getting my operation that day, so I’d sat about all day for nothing.
“I asked the doctor if I could go home and he told me I could, as long as I phoned at 5am the following morning to find out when my operation would be.
“I got in the door and, 20 minutes later, the phone went.
“It was a nurse from Ward 18 asking me to ‘clarify what the doctor had said to me’.
“They thought I had just gone home without saying anything. They didn’t know I had been discharged by the doctor.
“They’d even been calling my mum looking for me. She’s 70 and doesn’t need that type of stress.
“It’s bad enough they didn’t know my whereabouts, but what if I had been someone vulnerable or with learning difficulties?”
Sheila went back to the ward at 10am the following day but faced more delays, finally getting into theatre at 7.30pm and coming out at 1.30am on the Thursday.
She said: “I asked on Thursday if I could go home that morning — that was about 10am — but I had another day of waiting, until 4pm, to be given medication home with me.
“I have to say that the nurses were lovely. I don’t think it is their fault. There are just too many patients and not enough staff.”
An NHS Tayside spokeswoman said: “Occasionally, during high levels of demand on our orthopaedic services, it is necessary to prioritise and reprioritise throughout the day as urgent or emergency cases are admitted.”