The NHS has failed me: Cancer victim’s video on deathbed
Grandmother condemns her poor treatment
A GRANDMOTHER recorded a video from her hospital deathbed to say she had been ‘failed’ by the NHS when her spinal cancer went undiagnosed.
Patricia Whitehouse, 62, visited her GP seven times in two months complaining of back pain, and was also seen by nurses, a physiotherapist, paramedics and hospital doctors, but was repeatedly sent away with painkillers.
Mrs Whitehouse, a former charity project manager who ran a crafting business, described on the video how she had asked a locum GP for an X-ray, but was dismissed with the comment, ‘X-rays don’t show everything’.
She added: ‘The doctors have failed me, the NHS has failed me.’
In a dreadful irony, Mrs Whitehouse had been a member of the local NHS choir, which had raised money for an MRI scanner, her son Christopher said.
The divorced grandmother-of-four was twice diagnosed with a urinary tract infection before doctors finally realised – eight weeks later – that she was suffering from tumours on her spine and right lung. Mrs Whitehouse’s devastated family posted the 22-minute video on YouTube on Tuesday night, just hours after her death. It was filmed at Haywood Community Hospital – where she had been moved for palliative care – near her home in Stoke- on-Trent 11 days earlier. Christopher Whitehouse, 36, said: ‘My mum wanted this video released because we don’t want what happened to her to happen to anyone else. We are not angry with the NHS, we are just angry that not everything was done that could and should have been done to help Mum.
‘She was seen multiple times by multiple clinicians but nobody seemed to understand how serious the problem was, despite the pain my mother was in. We feel she was let down.’
Mr Whitehouse said he called an ambulance five weeks after his mother started suffering abdominal and back pain. He added: ‘I found her sat on the floor at home, in so much pain she was only able to eat from a box of cornflakes.’
Mrs Whitehouse spent nine hours on a trolley at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, before a doctor told her it was ‘too difficult to diagnose the pain as any one thing’. After being discharged with painkillers, Mrs Whitehouse described the service as ‘appalling’, adding: ‘You are given to believe the NHS is there from cradle to grave for those who need it. (The doctor) didn’t offer any other diagnosis.’
Three weeks later, Mr Whitehouse took his mother back to the hospital and insisted on an X-ray. Doctors said it was clear, but referred Mrs Whitehouse to a physiotherapist, who recommended an immediate MRI scan, which revealed three tumours.
She underwent an operation to fit rods in her back and was admitted to the oncology ward.
She was then moved for physiotherapy at Bradwell Hospital, Newcastle-under-Lyme, to help her walk after the operation, but was left paraplegic after a fall.
Mrs Whitehouse’s brother, Tony McKenzie, said: ‘Pat always complained that the staff were driving her too hard. She fell and a nurse couldn’t get her back up. Pat never walked again.’
On the video, a weak Mrs Whitehouse described Haywood Hospital and its staff as ‘pure magic’, adding: ‘They have shown me what nursing care and nursing standards ought to be like.’
University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust said it would ‘immediately investigate’. Trent Vale Medical Practice said it was unable to comment on the ‘tragic and complex case’ because of patient confidentiality.