The BBC have recently done a story on a 92 year old lady who had to wait 6 hours for an ambulance following having a stroke.

Watch the video below or visit the BBC to read the article for yourself…..

before we discuss a few of the “facts” in this article, I will start by saying that it is very sad that this elderly lady has died and also that my thoughts are with her family.

So now for the discussion….

The family were so worried, that rather than dialing 999 for an Emergency response, they called their GP who would have popped round a few hours later….

The GP was so worried, that she called for a non-emergency Ambulance to take the patient in 4 hours….

The family were so worried, that they left over 5 1/2 hours before calling to find out where the ambulance was….

The family were so concerned that despite withholding food and drink to their elderly relative because they “didn’t know whether she could have it or not” decided to not call either her GP or Ambulance Control (who would have called at the time of booking to explain that they could call back if needed) to find out if she was allowed too eat….

The patient was 92 and had a stroke some time ago, so long ago that no acute intervention could be offered….

And yet they have complained and have caused South Central Ambulance to Apologise on National News….

Applogise initialy for allowing Emergency calls to take priority over urgent calls…

And appologise indirectly for….

The crew stopping to pickup a stranded patient, in the street, who was giving birth, and for delivering that patient, who was presenting in an acute Emergency scenario and yet still tried to transport themselves to hospital rather than using Maternataxi, to a place of definitive care.

I am sorry, but in my humble opinion the Ambulance Service did not need to appologise for doing their job as an Emergency Service!

Whats more frustrating is that the patient that died some 5 weeks later, died of natural causes, not related to the stroke, not related to waiting 6 hours, no related to being diverted via a maternity hospital, but probably due to an infection that was caught from someone at the hospital….

… but I don’t see anyone complaining about the  Hospital!!

If I was that Paramedic, I would have done exactly the same!

What would you have done?