Five hours on f loor of A&E for woman, 22, in agony after collapsing

A YOUNG woman claims she was forced to lie in agony on the floor of a busy A&E department for more than five hours.

Kyra Dew’s mother Sandra took this photograph showing her daughter curled up under a nightgown, using her coat as a pillow.

She had taken Miss Dew, 22, to Hereford County Hospital after she collapsed at home.

Miss Dew, who suffers from polycystic ovary syndrome, had undergone an operation weeks earlier. Fearing something had gone wrong with the surgery, her mother drove her to A&E.

She said she was given oral morphine for the pain at 2pm, but by 3.30pm it had become unbearable, forcing her to lie in a foetal position on the floor while she waited for a bed.

Her mother blamed the closure of a local walk-in centre on the chaos at the emergency department.

Miss Dew, a student, said she was eventually moved onto a ward at 7.15pm – more than five hours after she first arrived at A&E.

The hospital blamed ‘unrelenting’ pressure on its emergency services. Kyra’s mother, 59, said: ‘When Kyra starts suffering pain she shakes [with it]. There were no beds or trollies so she could only lie down on the floor, and the receptionist got some bedding and coats and made her comfortable.

‘The staff were brilliant and were running around like mad. When a doctor came to see her there were other buzzers going off and he was working after his shift had finished. I do feel for the staff … they simply don’t have the resources to cope. Seeing Kyra forced to lie on the floor was heart-breaking.’

Kyra has suffered from painful polycystic ovaries for nine years. As a result, she has been unable to attend college and is studying for a digital marketing qualification online.

In December she had laser surgery to treat her condition and endometriosis, which had also been causing her pain for several years. She was recovering at home in Leominster, Herefordshire, when she collapsed on January 10.

She said: ‘If I’d been able to avoid going to hospital I would have done but the pain was so Distress: Kyra Dew, inset, curls up on the floor in casualty bad. I was terrified something pressures. Last week, leading had gone wrong with the surgery doctors warned the crisis was so and I might be dying. serious that patients were dying

‘It was the most excruciating in the corridors of overcrowded pain ever. My mum drove me to A&E units. A total of 68 doctors A&E but there were loads of wrote to the Prime Minister to patients. The only thing I could report ‘intolerable’ conditions do was curl up on the floor. I in many casualty departments. was in agony but it was even Hereford County Hospital worse when I was sat down and said: ‘Unfortunately, our emergency I couldn’t stand up.’ department was experiencing

Miss Dew, who lives with her high demand at mother, was kept in hospital this time… This pressure is overnight before being discharged unrelenting. We apologise to the following day. those patients who have had to

The NHS is struggling to cope wait longer than they would with unprecedented winter have expected.’