Pensioner waits 16 hours for treatment after fall
AN 80-YEAR-OLD man was left waiting more than 16 hours for emergency treatment on New Year’s Day after falling in the bathroom.
Tom Wilson, from Newtongrange in Midlothian, lay bleeding for more than three hours as he waited for an ambulance – and then spent 13 hours on a trolley in a corridor in A&E.
His case was highlighted by Scottish Labour as they blasted the SNP for “not properly supporting our NHS”.
Mr Wilson’s son, Michael, said he phoned 999 seven times – only to be told that an ambulance was coming from Kelso instead of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary just 14 minutes away. In an angry letter to Health Secretary Shona Robison, Michael Wilson said his father had been left on a hospital corridor “like an old cow waiting to die”.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said the BMA – the trade union for doctors – had previously said it was “fed up with this government’s spin, and patients are too”.
“The First Minister has been found out on her NHS spin,” he said.
The flu rate in Scotland for the first week of 2018 is four times higher than the same week last year. Statistics from Health Protection Scotland showed 107 Scots in every 100,000 of the population were diagnosed with the virus in the week ending January 7.
The Scottish Conservatives called for a moratorium to be introduced to halt the decline in hospital beds. In 2016/17, there were 21,340 beds in Scotland’s hospitals, Ruth Davidson said, compared to more than 23,000 in 2012/13. Ms Davidson added: “The SNP has cut bed numbers, and cut social care places. That means when issues like the recent flu crisis occur, our NHS reaches breaking point.”
Meanwhile, Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie accused Ms Sturgeon of having a “brass neck”.
He said Ms Sturgeon was directly responsible for failures in the NHS as First Minister and in her previous role as Health Secretary.
Responding to the claims during First Minister’s Questions, Ms Sturgeon said the “health service budget has gone up to record levels, the number of people who work in our health service has gone up to record levels and the number of delayed discharges has gone down over the past year”.
She said: “Despite the winter pressures – I readily acknowledge the pressure they put on not just patients but staff – I repeat that the health service in Scotland is the bestperforming health service anywhere in the United Kingdom.
“That is down partly to policy, but it is down principally to the hard work of staff right across our health service.”
But the First Minister apologised to Mr Wilson after his 16-hour wait for treatment was highlighted by Scottish Labour.
She said: “What I say to Mr Wilson is very simple: I say sorry to him if that was his experience of the health service.
“The Health Secretary and I will be more than happy to look into the specifics of Mr Wilson’s case if Richard Leonard passes them to us.”
Jim Crombie, deputy chief executive of NHS Lothian, said: “I would like to apologise to Mr Wilson and his family for any delays they encountered in the emergency department at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. We are experiencing significant pressures because of a high number of complex cases and respiratory illness and our staff are working extremely hard to provide the highest standards of care.
“We are monitoring the situation closely and working hard to minimise delays.”