1,000 real reasons not to trust Tories with health service
WE have uncovered 1,000 shocking real life stories that lay bare the daily struggle for nurses – and how the Tories’ shameful cuts and bungled reorganisation have left some units in crisis.
Thomas John Willetts, from Tamworth, Staffs, said: “I went to hospital at 5.30pm. I sat in A&E until 3am. That’s nine and a half hours waiting for a bed – not four.”
A serving police officer said: “I have seen custody suites more appealing and hospitable than the worn down, dirty looking waiting area and facilities at this hospital.”
Elizabeth Dawes was an oncology nurse working in the same department that delivered her life-changing cancer treatment in 2013. However, she was wrongly diagnosed and ended up leaving her job over the trauma of invasive surgery.
She said: “So much good work goes on in the NHS, but this mistake has cost me and my family dearly.”
An anonymous patient posted on NHS Choices website: “It was like a Cambodian war zone. Bodies up against bodies coughing and spluttering, some with bloody dressings leaning up against walls. Not an inch of space to move.”
Clare Long, 49, from Suffolk, said her mother-in-law was turned away from A&E, adding: “She had been blocked for three weeks and her intestine burst. It led to septicaemia, and her bowel and spleen had to be removed. I have no faith in doctors or hospitals at all anymore.”
John Sullivan, from Edgware, North London, said waiting times for his treatment had surged since the Coalition came to power: “I have an incurable cancer and waited six months for surgery. Under Labour when I had prostate cancer I waited six weeks.”
Tony Long, from Swansea, said: “I tried to get my wife an appointment and had it cancelled four times over a week.” Heather Freer, from Kirklees, West Yorks, complained: “My husband waited seven hours to be seen in hospital.”
Gemma Higgins, an intensive care nurse from Burnley, Lancs, admitted: “The last few months have left me drained of nearly all I have to give.”
Glenda Lyons, from Southampton, revealed: “Two years ago I spent 10 hours on a trolley in A&E waiting for a bed. A year ago my partner spent 40 minutes in an ambulance waiting to get into A&E.”
Frances Mincherton, from Salford, Greater Manchester, highlighted the lack of time nurses can devote to patients. “In 1966 my mother died of cancer and was treated with more kindness and compassion than was shown more recently to my husband or his mother,” she fumed.
Mags Douglas, 50, from Newcastle, told us: “The NHS left me thinking I had colon cancer for five months. It was an experience I never want to go through again.” Sarah Baines, an NHS worker in the Midlands, raised the issue of bed-blocking. “Our ward has 11 patients who are medically fit but cannot go home as they are waiting for social packages,” she said.
Nicola Wootton, a 54-year-old nurse from Sutton Coldfield, added: “Bevan said it would provide from the cradle to the grave. Today, with what’s happening to my beloved NHS, he would spinning in it.”
More real-life NHS stories at mirror.co.uk and every day this week in the Daily Mirror.