Cancer patient’s A&E ordeal
AN army veteran with terminal cancer had to wait six hours for an ambulance before spending the night in A&E sitting up on a chair in severe pain.
Former Welsh Guard Jeffrey Berbillion was given a diagnosis of bone cancer three months ago and on Monday afternoon found out he would need his lungs drained.
According to Jeffrey’s family, his doctor asked for him to be admitted to hospital, but the 52-year-old grandfather then had to wait six hours for the ambulance to arrive at his home in Tonyrefail.
After a long wait and a journey in the ambulance to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, he was still not seen by a medical professional.
Due to the cancer in his bones, he has a leg fracture and finds sitting very uncomfortable. But as there was no doctor to see him, Jeffrey, who was with his wife Alyson, was forced to wait on a chair all night and was not seen until late on Tuesday morning.
His daughter, Sarah, said: “He doesn’t deserve this and my mum doesn’t deserve this. No-one does. I know there’s no magic wand that anyone can wave and it all goes away – we have never asked for that. But when my mum feels that she has to sleep in a hospital chair to make sure my dad is OK, that’s just not right.”
Jeffrey served in the Welsh Guards for more than six years from December 1982, before working as a security official and then a carer for vulnerable adults.
Sarah added: “He gave up all his time for other people and has always been there to help anyone who ever needed it. My health has been quite bad over the past few years and I don’t know what I would have done without him. It’s bad enough we are at a point where we know there’s no treatment, it’s just a case of how much time.”
Sarah said Alyson worked in the NHS as a practice manager for 25 years, but that even she couldn’t find anyone at the hospital who could help her husband.
She added: “When you are going through this and the people you turn to for help let you down, who can you trust? Last night, we phoned so many people as we could to find somewhere he could go for treatment without having to go to hospital.
“But you shouldn’t have to be scared of someone you know going into hospital for treatment. I am angry and scared. My dad’s got an 11-month-old grandson who worships him.”
Alyson’s cousin, Paula Pope, added: “He’s in such pain. If they had known they couldn’t treat him in hospital, why couldn’t they just have treated him at home? It’s just absolute nonsense.
“The family are at the end of their tether. He’s been there so many times and the care has been so bad. It’s so unfair.”
Paula said the family complained to staff, but still nothing was done.
She added: “It’s just so frustrating. We have just got to sit and watch it happen.
“No-one seems to be caring for him. It’s really not right. End of life care shouldn’t be like this.”
According to Sarah, late on Tuesday morning local community councillor Dan Owen-Jones spoke directly to the director of nursing at Royal Glamorgan. She then visited Jeffrey, managed to find a bed and source a doctor to put a plan in place to drain his lungs on Wednesday.
Sarah added: “Dad is frustrated, upset and very tired – all he’s asking for is that he receives the correct treatment to make the most of whatever time he has to make memories with family, friends and loved ones.”
A spokeswoman for Cwm Taf University Health Board said: “We are unable to comment on individual cases; however, we know that our A&E departments remain busy and we apologise to patients and their families who have experienced delays in the department.
“Increases in demand are expected at this time of year and staff across the health board are continuing to work hard to deliver care to patients.”
She said the health board thanks the public for their patience and that staff make “every effort to keep services running”.