The NHS saved me. Now we have to save the NHS
Best-selling crime writer hails hospital staff after almost dying but warns service is stretched
One of the UK’S best loved crime writers is recovering after a brush with death.
Denzil Meyrick, 52, author of the DCI Daley series, told the Sunday Post he owes his l i fe to the “amazing” NHS medical teams who treated him when he suffered heart failure.
The writer has spoken out to hail hospital staff but also to highlight his fears for the NHS after he was treated at the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley.
He claims staff were overworked and underpaid while the hospital also suffered shortages in bandages, bed sore pads and Elastoplast and even water jugs.
Denzil spent three weeks in RAH before being transferred to Vale of Leven District Hospital in Alexandria to recuperate for two weeks prior to discharge in October last year.
But it is only now – after his latest scan showed a major improvement in his heart – that the author feels able to talk about his ordeal.
Denzil said: “At one point I thought I was a goner. I owe my life to the professionalism and dedication of the amazing medical team at RAH.
“The treatment I received was second to none. If I had gone undiagnosed much longer I would have died, or at the very least my life would have been significantly reduced. Now, thankfully, I am almost back to normal.
“But I was shocked by the conditions in which these people have to work and the overall state of the NHS.”
Denzil – who has for years suffered both debilitating psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, which causes painful
inflamma- tion of the spine – was taken to the RAH last summer to be treated for pneumonia but doctors discovered serious problems with his heart.
Medication improved his condition but by then he had lost three stones, had been bed-bound for four months and suffered so much muscle wastage he couldn’t walk.
After five weeks in hospital – two of which were spent in physiotherapy at Vale of Leven – he was allowed home.
Better but still not completely recovered, the writer has spoken out in praise of his treatment and also to highlight worrying problems he saw in hospital.
However Denzil claimed: “During the time I was in hospital I witnessed the full gamut of what is happening to the NHS.
“I witnessed a terrible shortage in staff and long waits for equipment, like my echocardiogram.
“They ran out of things like the pads they have for people with bedsores, bandages or the padding that goes on the abrasion, Elastoplast; basic stuff like that. They even ran out of water jugs at one point.
“I was told about people leaving the profession en masse and those who had to take up second jobs to bolster their income.
“To me it seemed like the RAH was under siege in the amount of work they have to handle. And these people haven’t had a pay rise – in real terms – since goodness knows when.”
He said: “The heart of the NHS is failing, despite the dedication of those in it. In 10 years’ time, if it carries on along the road it is travelling, our health service will be a shadow of itself or we will be
forced into a USA type of situation where we have to buy our health care privately.
“We cannot afford to let that happen.”
Denzil added: “While all this was going on I was supposed to speak at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Bloody Scotland and the Cologne Crime Festival, followed by a media tour throughout Germany.
“I couldn’t do any of it but my agents and publishers across the world were fantastically understanding, as were the events I was supposed to attend.
“My wife, Fiona, and my stepdaughter, Rachel, were magnificent. They really held the line when I was going through what was the hardest time in my life.”
Now back at the Loch Lomond- side home he shares with his poet wife, Denzil has managed to finish the sixth title in the DCI Daley series, The Relentless Tide, which will launch in September.
“The good news is I had a scan about three weeks ago that showed that in just a few months I have gone from having severe heart failure to mild-to-moderate heart failure.
“I am now excited and I feel rejuvenated. Before I could only walk two or three steps before gasping for breath. Now I walk every day and I don’t have to stop at all. I have moderated my diet and am very frugal with alcohol.
“When I first heard the term heart failure I thought it a terrifying thing. Thanks to the wonderful teams at RAH and Vale of Leven I am almost back to normal.”
A spokesman for the RAH said the hospital was well stocked and there was no record of shortages, but he added: “That is not to say that a nurse on a ward might have had to make a call to the hospital’s supplies team to top up the supply of a specific product on a ward. However, that is not the same as the RAH running out of supplies.”
He denied issues with staffing, stating: “We have a flexible rostering policy which local ward managers implement to agree work patterns that best suit the needs of patients and staff.
“This ensures there are the right numbers and skill mix on duty, at the right time, to deliver care and ensure safe and effective services are delivered.”
And he said “patient- facing” nurses’ salaries start at band five or £ 22,440 for new graduates, rising to £42,205 in band seven.
‘ In 10 years time, if it carries on along the road it is travelling, our health service will be a shadow of itself