Patient’s 18-hour ‘broken hip’ wait for ambulance
AN 85-year-old woman with dementia was forced to wait 18 hours for an ambulance in pain with a suspected broken hip.
It is the latest in a long line of heartbreaking ambulance delay stories from across the West Midlands, which have prompted an MP to call on the Government to “wake up” and act to “stop people dying”.
Midland MP Helen Morgan tabled a motion in Parliament calling for direct action to address the region’s ambulance service crisis, following a series of reports of patients waiting hours for ambulances or facing long delays stuck inside ambulances once they arrive at hospitals.
It follows a catastrophic warning from a top boss at West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) that the service faces “collapse” within weeks.
The service says delays at hospitals beyond its control are responsible for the crisis. Paramedic teams are regularly having to spend hours queueing outside hospitals because of a lack of beds and staff. And if they can’t hand their patient over they can’t get back onto the roads to respond to 999 calls.
In April, WMAS director Mark Docherty said at least 72 people in the West Midlands had almost certainly died in the past year because ambulances did not get to them in time.
A massive 148 patients waited more than 10 hours in ambulances outside hospitals in the West Midlands in April, latest data showed.
Lib Dem Ms Morgan said: “Earlier this week I was contacted by a constituent whose 85-year-old mother was forced to wait in pain for 18 hours before an ambulance arrived to treat her suspected broken hip.
“The family have nothing but praise for the kind, caring and hardworking paramedics who eventually arrived but they are understandably angry that the health situation has been allowed to get this bad.
“Unfortunately her case is no longer unusual, in fact it is very common. What will it take for the Government to act?”
The Department of Health and Social Care says £150 million of additional funding has been allocated to address pressure on ambulance services.