Western Morning News (Saturday)
Ambulance wait terror for city’s disabled mayor
TRURO’S mayor has said he was left terrified for his life when he had a “crazy” 90-minute wait for an ambulance – while his blood pressure spiked and he started to turn blue.
Mayor Steven Webb, who is paralysed from the waist down after a spinal injury 30 years ago, suffered an autonomic dysreflexia attack – a potentially fatal condition.
As his blood pressure soared and his heart rate dropped, Mr Webb was at severe risk of a stroke, seizure or cardiac arrest. He said as soon as he noticed something was wrong he called for an ambulance.
But he was left waiting as his blood pressure peaked at 230/160, he had a pounding headache, heavy sweating and was beginning to turn blue.
After 20 minutes he called again for an ambulance. “It was five minutes before the call was answered,” Mr Webb said. “I’d say that was nearly game over. To me that is really dangerous. We had all the tablets we could, but we waited 90 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
“When they arrived, the crew was amazing, everyone I dealt with at the NHS was amazing and they looked after me. But I learned from them that the reason for the delay was that the closest available ambulance to do a blue light call was in Saltash.” That’s 50 miles away from Mr Webb’s home in Truro.
The ambulance had to battle through traffic between east and mid-Cornwall before reaching Mr Webb’s home. From there, he was treated and is now on the mend.
His experience highlights a major problem with delays in getting patients into hospital and frequent difficulties in finding them a bed. Mr Webb went on: “It’s just absolutely crazy. It seems to be quite normal, but nothing about that is normal. I can remember when you used to phone an ambulance and they’d keep you on the phone, they’d tell you where they were and a few minutes later the ambulance was there. I’ve known people to have to wait a few hours, but not me before. I felt kind of useless. Having experienced it. It’s one thing knowing and another when you actually are the one on the phone. At some point it’ll be us, or a relative, waiting for an ambulance and someone is going to die. It’s terrifying.
“Last time I had to call an ambulance for autonomic dysreflexia, about 15 or 20 years ago, I was in a hospital bed with an IV drip within 25 minutes.” He added that, in his view, the issue isn’t to do with the quality of the care but with the crippling underfunding of the NHS.
The scare for the councillor, who is serving his second term as Truro’s mayor came as, this week, Truro’sThree Spires Medical Practice announced to its patients that non-essential cases would be in for a wait. Earlier this month, Royal Cornwall Hospital told people to stay away from A&E unless they absolutely needed it.
Mr Webb continued: “We don’t have the staff for a new hospital in Cornwall, but we need something done now to get people out of hospital. The only thing I can think of is care, stopping bed blocking. Pay carers a reasonable amount, get those carers. It’s not their fault. My main worry is doctors, nurses, ambulance crews are so passionate, they love their jobs so much. They will soldier on, all the way through it. But when it comes to it, if things settle down the Government will say ‘there you go it wasn’t a problem’.”
A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are sorry that, due to the health and social care system being under severe pressure, some patients are having to wait longer for an ambulance. One of the reasons for this is due to the length of time it’s taking us to hand over patients into busy hospitals. We are working closely with NHS partners to address these delays.”
‘I can remember when you phoned for an ambulance and in a few minutes it was there’ STEVEN WEBB