My mum died from stroke when ambulance took hours to arrive

A GRIEVING daughter has told how her mother died of a stroke when ambulances were repeatedly late. Adelaide Law, 68, died in April following two major strokes in a month.

Her daughter Lynsay Law, 6, said ambulances arrived late on three occasions. The delays were so bad after the first stroke that the family had to drive Mrs Law to hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. Miss Law said relatives called the ambulance straight away after finding her mother unresponsive in March.

‘The woman kept saying “We’ll be with you shortly”,’ she said. ‘It had been 45 minutes since my sister rang them and nobody arrived. So she called the ambulance again, and they said “Sorry, we’re going to be at least another hour”.’

They decided to drive their mother to Bassetlaw Hospital, only to be told it did not have the right equipment and she needed to be transferred to a larger hospital for treatment. Miss Law said: ‘With a stroke you have four hours to get life-saving treatment. We had to ring the Lynsay Law and her mum Adelaide ambulance again and say, “You need to get here now”. They arrived late. By then it was too late to have the treatment.’ Her mother slowly started to recover and was returned to Bassetlaw Hospital but suffered another stroke.

An ambulance took several hours to arrive. Mrs Law was brain dead by the time she reached Doncaster.