Diabetic nurse died after wait for ambulance
THE family of a Type 1 diabetic nurse who died after waiting five hours for an ambulance yesterday demanded lessons be learned from the tragedy.
Lisa Day fell ill in September last year and was vomiting blood at the house of friend Luke Halliburton, an acting police sergeant.
He called an ambulance soon after 5pm but by 10pm it had not arrived, St Pancras coroner’s court heard.
During that time the 27- year- old’s condition deteriorated and she suffered a heart attack. She died in hospital five days later.
Miss Day was assessed as a patient needing an ambulance to get to her within 30 minutes.
But the phone line clinical adviser, a nurse, knew the ambulance service was under strain that day and asked Miss Day if she could get to hospital by car. The adviser told the inquest: “Her response was, ‘ I want to go by ambulance’.”
Coroner Mary Hassell said: “What really worries me is that there was nobody saying to those with her ‘ You know what, she is really poorly, is there any way you can get her to the hospital?’”
Afterwards Miss Day’s brother- inlaw Matthew Edwards blamed ambulance service under- resourcing and said her death was avoidable.
He said: “The sadness will last with us now the rest of our lives. I hope these lessons will be learnt and this case will not happen again.” Miss Day’s mother Doreen Proud wept as she said: “She should still be here.”
Returning a narrative verdict, Ms Hassell said she was “really worried” at what happens to poorly, at- risk patients when there are not enough ambulances to get to them.
Ambulance service deputy director Peter McKenna said: “We would like to once again offer our sincere condolences to the family of Lisa Day.”
He said the findings of an internal inquiry had been presented to them.