Waiting for an ambulance

[BigcatLittlecat]

I called an ambulance for my elderly mother at 4.45. Got told it's a long wait and to not call back. She fell off her bed and think she has broken her hip. She's in a lot of pain. What can I do, apart from call 999 back?

OP I really hope you have your ambulance now and your mum is receiving care. This was my dad yesterday morning. Horrible. One tip that helped him: as well as propping with loads of pillows and duvets, i gave him a pillow to hug tight which he did - he seemed to get a lot of comfort from that.

Dear God, that is devastating

^This^

Annoying those people that don't have clinical need for an ambulance, but they don't want to 'bother' a neighbour or friend by asking them to take them to A&E, or they don't want to get a taxi. Then there's those that think they will get seen quicker if they go in by ambulance.
Meanwhile this poor lady is left lying in pain.

Not sure if the system is broken, or people are just more selfish and entitled, putting unnecessary pressure on the wrong things.

I hope your mum is seen soon and recovers quickly.

@HarrietSchulenberg - yes, Tories and right wing "think tanks" will try and blame the NHS to move towards privatisation. That would be a disaster (and far most expensive for everyone than decently funded universal healthcare).

@OnTheBrinkOfChange she is thank you. Colds go straight to her chest and we are on our third episode of bronchiolitis in 7 months. The care we've had has always been great. Scary to see her struggling to breathe but I recognise it and act quickly.

OP I really hope you're mum is ok.

One of my local hospitals near work is Northwick Park . In the last week , we have conveyed a number of people there because our other options was waiting 12 - 15 hours for an ambulance , and I don't think we ever counted less than a dozen ambulances outside . The record was 19 . All waiting to offload into A and E . Then there were the ten or so police vehicles and crews with people who had sectioned, and the police doing what we were , and that , right there is why you have no emergency response.

And it's not the ambulances fault . They have to be accepted into A and E , they can't just dump and run . This is what happens when you treat public services with contempt . "If you don't like it , get a better job" So they do . NHS nurses think "fuck it " and do agency work for better hours and more money . Doctors have gone back to Europe , or Australia or Canada instead . Paramedics are doing the same . Why wouldn't you , when the loudest voices are the ones berating you for having the audacity to buy food during a 12 hour shift ?

I've been thinking the same thing....forcing us to think it's the only way to make it better...however, surely we'll still have the same number of staff, same number of hospitals, same number of carers?? Funny how things miraculously improve when you pay private?! Same with dentists, our local dentist apparently are no longer able to accept existing or new NHS patients yet they can accept all of these patients if they pay privately, even my children are no longer covered by the NHS. This country has gone to shit

They put up nightingale wards for covid that ended up unused. This is a more pressing emergency - why aren't nightingale wards being set up to deal with this strain. I guess it's lack of organisation and because the people in charge don't care It's a public sector problem, not a government problem.

Where I live the ambulances have to take people with broken bones to the nearest hospital. Epsom. Epsom has no facility for emergency surgery, no orthopaedics on site for emergencies, and no overnight consultant oversight. Around here you could wait hours for the ambulance, taken to a facility where they can't help you however long you may wait outside A&E, wait hours and hours for an F2 to order an XRay. Once the break is confirmed, you can then wait for hours and hours to be transferred to St Helier for presumably another wait. I wouldn’t bank on them.providing pain relief either.

I await an explanation about why people with broken bones or who may need surgery are not taken to St Helier in the first place. The two hospitals are only about 4/5 miles apart.

There seems to be a vested interest in messing people about as much as it is humanly possible to do.

I hope your mum's OK op.

Cannot stress enough please do not attempt to move her. Putting her on a shower curtain in a van is just incomprehensible. I'm honestly aghast at that.

My mum recently injured her hip and she waited about 8 hours but I put this down to her being very rural. It's so difficult when you can't help them but you are doing all you can.

As others have said, keep her warm, try and support her position with pillows and blankets and just be there.

Similar thing happened to me last November, I waited stuck on the kitchen floor after a horrific fall where my lower leg was facing the wrong way, for about 4 hours then a further 2 hours outside A&E.

Everyone (the hospital staff) was stunned I’d ‘made it through so quick’ it’s a sorry state of of affairs currently. It’s very worrying.

Do not attempt to move her. The system is well and truly f**d but do not move her. Keep her warm and as comfortable as possible. Paracetamol or ibuprofen for pain and wait it out I'm afraid. I'm so sorry she's having to go through this.

I think the ambulance service needs to be looked at re; the time they spend at each shout. A few months ago there was a minor road accident at the end of my street. Nobody was trapped in a vehicle. No vehicle overturned..an ambulance came and 2 police cars. One hour later another ambulance arrived.
So 2 ambulances and 2 police cars.
2 hours after the first ambulance arrived they were all still at the scene. I learned later that day that nobody was seriously injured apart from whiplash. So I would question what in the name of Holy fuck did they require 2 ambulances and 2 police cars for 2 whole hours?
Then last week an ambulance was called to an elderly neighbour. The ambulance was outside for 2 hours. The paramedics then wheeled the patient out in a wheelchair into the ambulance. Then a further hour till.they drove off. So that was 3 hours . What the fuck were they doing?.

There but for the grace of god go I .

what terrible stories to read. As a previous poster says there is no provision to pay for for emergency care. We are all equal when we find ourselves needing medical care for a heart attack, stroke, car accident injury etc. it is certainly a great leveller.

it would seem most people can see the absurdity of ambulances parked up for the entirety of their shift outside of emergency departments dealing with one patient that should be inside the hospital being cared for.

why can’t the powers that be see this? It’s not a very recent situation, it’s been happening for quite a while.

The Tories refer to patients awaiting discharge as “bedblockers” , quite a negative term. I’m sure said persons would be more than happy to leave the hospital if that were possible.

My take on this awful situation which affects all stratas of society is that it is a political problem. The medics know what they are doing as do all the related professionals involved in patient care. It’s not the management even.

we have a government which is letting people die to enable change for political purposes.

yes in 10 years time there maybe functional healthcare due to the introduction of the American model I do believe they are pushing for. But in the meantime we are very much going to be left to god and good neighbours.

Well maybe they needed to ascertain there were no spinal injuries in the car accident?

If they sat in the ambulance for an hour with your elderly neighbour id suggest they were trying to stabilise her because she wasn't well enough.

I mean, what do you THINK they were doing?

HNTH FT but because your mum is in a safe place she will have to wait…the NHS is broken!! Absolutely shocking!

My 11 yo was in respiratory distress last week and I was told 1hr40 minimum for an ambulance, I was scared to driver in case it worse. Too 15 minutes to get an answer on 999. If you were having a heart attack you'd be dead.

Why are we so short of beds?

It sounds like there are in fact plenty of ambulances and paramedics, but they’re spending hours and hours just waiting outside A&E waiting to be free for the next call.

Without getting overly political and in layman’s terms, what’s at the heart of this problem? Fewer beds? Less staff? Increase in population? Lack of GP appointments?

The problem with the ambulance service is not people wanting lifts. Or lack of ambulances. It’s the fact they’re standing outside the hospital for hours on end waiting for beds to be available. If there was a “drop and run” facility there would be more than enough ambulances. It’s no good taking someone to A&E yourself because there won’t be a bed for them - they need an ambulance to lie in until a bed becomes available.

OP I hope your mum has got to hospital by now! My Nan had a similar fall earlier this year and lay on a hard stone floor for five hours. She had a hip replacement op but still couldn’t walk because her leg muscles had died from lying on the floor for so long. Think about when your bum goes numb from sitting on a hard chair - that’s because the blood can’t circulate properly. Lying on a hard floor for hours basically cut off the blood supply to muscles in my Nan’s thighs and buttocks, which subsequently died, leaving her unable to walk. Then as her body broke down the dead muscle it released chemicals into her bloodstream which caused kidney failure, confusion and vomiting. She nearly died. Not because of the broken hip, but because of rhabdomyolysis (muscle death) resulting from a crush injury where she had lay on the floor for hours.

My 89 year old dad broke his hip last week and waited seven hours lying on his kitchen floor in pain for an ambulance, then two and half hours in ambulance outside hospital. The call handlers advised against moving him, his hip was obviously broken, leg at weird angle. Absolutely awful. Hope your mum gets looked after.

I’m so sorry to read all these upsetting tales.

My SIL is a consultant. She did a 14 hour shift this week, most care homes are refusing to have residents back, especially with any breathing problems due to Covid, and so the wards are crammed. They can’t have the turnover cycle and now have long term people on the wards, nowhere for new arrivals to go.

it is a crisis that should involve cross party working with the best brains to come up with a short, medium and long term solution, keeping NHS in the public sector. It can be done, the will to do it just isn’t there by those the public elect and pay handsomely.

There are currently almost 10,000 people hospitalised with Covid (and rising fast), that cannot be helping matters.

@NancyDrooo there aren't the staff to man more beds. The nightingale hospitals were a complete waste of money as there were never the staff available to man them! I've worked in the NHS for 20 years, there are far fewer beds in my hospital than there was when I started. That along with the wait for packages of care for medically fit patients to leave the hospital safely is causing the back up in A&E with ambulances unable to offload their patients.

This is what over a decade of the fucking Tories does to the NHS. Beds have been cut. Overseas staff have left because of Brexit. Senior staff are frantically cutting hours because of the pensions tax fuck up meaning they cannot afford to work. Quite a few people have burned out completely. Almost every ITU doctor I know is in the process of quitting ITU. And social care has been fucked over, so medically fit patients can't be discharged. It's a political choice. Exacerbated by a pandemic.

What were they doing ? Probably trying to work out if they had a care package , a support worker , doing observations , trying to persuade the patient to actually go to hospital , and if they refuse then having to do an assessment and possibly use their powers around mental capacity , speaking to the patients GP , and trying to find care for the patient that didn't involve sitting for 11 hours outside A and E . Apart from that , bugger all