OAP falls in the road... but GP won’t help her as he’s ‘not f irst-aider’
A GP refused to help an 88-yearold woman who fell and knocked herself unconscious in front of his surgery because he was ‘not first-aid trained’.
Iris Henderson had just got off a bus when she collapsed, cutting her head and injuring her arm.
Passer-by Jane Batchelor found her knocked out and dashed into the practice to ask f or help, but said staff were ‘completely uninterested’.
When she persisted, locum Christopher Uwagboe was approached, but he refused to leave his office. Staff even declined to supply a blanket to make Mrs Henderson comfortable until an ambulance came.
The widow was eventually taken to hospital, where she remains more than a week later.
Yesterday, Mrs Batchelor said she was ‘completely disgusted’ with the surgery. The mother-of-two was visiting Knebworth and Marymead Medical Practice in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, with her daughter when she heard a ‘big bang’.
Referring to Mrs Henderson, she added: ‘I think she tried to cross the road but then fell over and banged her head. She was unconscious for about five or ten minutes. I ran straight into the doctor’s and thought they would have come straight out, but the receptionist was really rude.
‘There was no urgency and she seemed completely uninterested. She eventually went to get the doctor but she came out of his office and just said there was nothing he could do.’
Mrs Batchelor, who runs a cake business, called 999 and was advised to get a defibrillator as Mrs Henderson had a pacemaker.
But the surgery refused to hand one over. The following day, she complained to practice manager Kenneth Spooner who told her Dr Uwagboe was not first-aid trained and the surgery had been sued several times for treating people in similar circumstances.
After Mrs Henderson injured herself on September 18, a paramedic in a rapid-response car arrived within five minutes, but it took another 30 minutes for an ambulance to turn up and take her to Lister Hospital in Stevenage.
Mrs Batchelor has visited her there and says she has a bandaged head and a cast on her right arm.
Neither the pensioner, who lives alone in sheltered accommodation in Stevenage, nor her family wanted to discuss her ordeal yesterday.
But a neighbour said: ‘She’s a very frail lady. It’s very sad and shocking that no one from the surgery would help her.’
Dr Uwagboe, 62, declined to comment when approached at the surgery yesterday. Dr Uwagboe and Mr Spooner refused to confirm whether he had received first-aid training.
The Nigeri a n- born GP, of Loughton, Essex, graduated in the West African state at the University of Benin in 1977 and trained at the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. He qualified in 1989 and joined the GP register in 2006.
The Royal College of GPs last night said members were not automatically trained in first aid but there is a ‘Good Samaritan principle’ under which all British doctors have medical indemnity whoever they treat, even if it is not one of their patients.
Spokesman Dr Helen StokesLampard added ‘There is no legal reason for not helping.’
In a statement, the practice said it was ‘reviewing procedures to ensure this does not happen again’.