ANGER

An 80-year-old man waited more than three hours for an ambulance and then spent 13 hours stranded on a hospital trolley, it has emerged.

Tom Wilson’s case was highlighted by Labour at First Minister’s Questions and led to Nicola Sturgeon apologising for the ordeal the elderly patient suffered earlier this month.

The details of Mr Wilson’s 16-hour delay before he was admitted to a general ward at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (ERI) came as Ms Sturgeon came under increasing pressure over the Scottish Government’s stewardship of the NHS.

The state of the health service dominated First Minister’s Questions with the Scottish Tories calling on Ms Sturgeon to stop cutting hospital beds while Scotland was in the midst of a “flu crisis”.

MSPS at Holyrood heard that Mr Wilson was found lying in a pool of blood after falling in his bathroom on the evening of New Year’s Day.

An emergency call was made to the ambulance service. According to the pensioner’s family, it took three hours 17 minutes for the ambulance to arrive while Mr Wilson continued to bleed and drifted in and out of consciousness.

The patient was taken to ERI where he was forced to spend 13 hours on a trolley in A&E before being admitted to a general ward.

Mr Wilson’s son Michael has e-mailed a letter to health secretary Shona Robison saying his father was treated “like an old cow waiting to die”.

He also claimed his father could have died had his injuries been more serious. The letter described how he rushed from his home in Niddrie to be with his father after his mother rang him. His father appeared very confused and he managed to lift him out of the pool of blood into his bedroom during their long wait for help.

The letter added: “I am sure you will not even answer my e-mail but I want to go to the papers and news and try to get this out as I am so so fed up of the lies and you saying the NHS is fine. I am lucky it was just the flu and cuts and bruises as if it was anything else he could have died waiting that long on an ambulance. “

More extracts from the letter,

“Iamsosofedupofthe lies and you saying the Nhsisfine…iamsure you will say it has got nothing to do with you or the SNP and blame Westminster”

MICHAEL WILSON