Dying and the NHS

[TheAmusedQuail]

This week, my elderly neighbour (history of heart problems) needed an ambulance. His wife called 999 and they told him the wait was 5 hours. The operator advised him to go to the local GP surgery which is a 5 minute walk away (2 min drive).

He died in the waiting room. The horror of the lack of help available to us in emergencies is like that of an undeveloped country. Today, I read about a man having a heart attack in A&E in the UK. He was left, rolling on the floor in agony, turning blue in the face and frothing at the mouth, in front of his family.

I'm not young, although not yet elderly. I'm terrified that there will be no help available, given that I'm getting older. I know it isn't just my neighbour, or the man I read about, or me. It's all of us. But I'm very scared.

"By the way everyone should know where there nearest defibrillator is - mine is at local school, but gates are locked out of hours so have to go further."

Adding to this -- if you are the lone bystander, do not leave to get a defib machine. Only 20% of out of hospital cardiac arrests have a shockable rhythm and it doesn't matter how shockable the rhythm of the heart is if the brain has died. The single best thing you can do for a patient in cardiac arrest is call an ambulance and start chest compressions until help arrives.

I didn’t know this. Thank you

I wish.
My husband was on the 999 call for 15 minutes begging for an ambulance. Several times he clearly stated " central crushing chest pain, radiating to back, jaw and down left arm".
Any member of the public would have recognised those symptoms, but not that call handler. According to her triage we would get a call back in 2 hours. Meanwhile sips of water would suffice. The more he pleaded with her the nastier and more aggressive she got.
Eventually she put him onto her supervisor who very grudgingly agreed to send a first responder who happened to be a couple of minutes away.
The first responder radioed for an ambulance and I was blue lighted to hospital, spent 24 hours in resus, then had an angiogram and stent.
I am thankful to be alive, but very traumatised by that call handler.

The NHS is an absolute joke. My husband works there and he agrees. Too many management being paid ridiculous amounts for doing little wok.

My Dad died nearly two years ago, the NHS did not care. They wrote him off and didn't treat him properly. They are obviously ageist and sadly this is from a young age IMO.

If you're 60+, they don't care.

DS2 is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in A&E. A woman brought her child in with a verruca. That needs a pharmacy not fecking A&E. Meanwhile he’s seeing patient after patient on the back of an ambulance because there’s nowhere to put them in the department. Imo there should be a doctor, but we don’t have enough of them either, on the door sending time wasters home.

Don't vote for Farage, he wants rid of the NHS
I don't want to have to sell my house, to fund my cancer journey

This is exactly why I don't support assisted dying. People who are ill / frail would be gently nudged towards it, especially if they're poor. Wealthier people who can afford their own care home fees would probably fare better

I have no doubt it'll be brought in, as it'll save the Govt £££

It’s an awful situation to be in 😞 our local GP practice and others in the vicinity have told patients not to go into the GP surgeries if they require emergency care whilst in the vicinity of the surgery, patients have to call 999 for assistance.

I agree with you. I've noticed some awful stories coming from Canada, which has MAID. It seems that if a patient needs more money spent on them than the state is prepared to fund then the state thinks being killed is better.

Agree with you both. It isn't morally acceptable that a lack of family or money should mean you are pushed into assisted dying.

You say that but some people are and do go to a&e for absolutely ridiculous things. I had a neighbour who hurt her finger gardening, it was little more than a bruised finger. She sat in a&e for an hour then realised the wait was long, so decided to go home and said it was feeling better. This was several years ago but genuinely it needed an ice pack at most. So some people genuinely go to a&e for utterly ridiculous reasons.

Yes, this is not dissimilar to my neighbour's experience sadly. Chest pain. History of heart problems. 5 hour wait.

I’ve just seen a story from someone I follow on instagram. She’s at A&e having hurt her finger at the gym! It’s bruised and painful but she can bend and move it - a completely pointless and needless A&E trip! She could have gone to a local pharmacy for advice.

I also agree. I can absolutely see the arguments for assisted dying and agree with it in principle and wish it had been available for a close relative. However, having seen some dubious ceilings of care, thresholds to get treatment, guidelines being abandoned, there’s already an indirect assisted dying in practice. The way disabled and elderly are talked about in the press and on social media, the stories coming out of Canada etc - there’s no way assisted dying would be implemented as intended. People are more ill now - not just the elderly, even the amount of illness in young doctors has rocketed. People understandably do not want an American style system, yet that’s exactly the way some politicians are pushing.

I worked in the NHS and there is so much money wasted.

Honestly you could have sacked a third of the staff in the place I worked and they wouldn’t have been missed in the slightest, in fact it probably would have improved the morale and performance of the staff who were left.

Thats it, people really do use a&e unnecessarily and that does take time away from genuine cases.

I totally agree with you. I've been looking after various elderly relatives over the last few years and the automatic 'treatment' that they are given - when they want to be left to die - is ridiculous.

Likewise the testing and diagnostics for very old relatives who just have aches and pains - and nothing is found - and even if something WAS found, treatment would be worse than cure. It's a waste of resources.

Alongside lots of other treatment, my FIL had an iron transfusion in his last days. It particularly really upset me because I've been begging for one for my anaemia but I don't fit the criteria!

I think it’s hard to generalise from that. And not always obvious from appearances whether people should be there.

Eg I’ve taken my kid to A&E with a “cold” but it was actually croup and he needed an overnight stay, steroids and an oxygen mask.

I was also once sent there by a consultant friend with my son when he bashed his chin coming off his scooter. He needed a double row of stitches from a max fax surgeon.

I’ve also attended with a child who looked fine but was actually vomiting and slipping in and out of consciousness from a concussion.

From looking at us you would have probably judged us as time-wasters but on each occasion we absolutely needed to be there.

I had heart attack symptoms recently and collapsed. Call handler was beyond disinterested, no urgency, told me to count my own pulse and when I was too unwell said I would have to start again. Said it would be 20 minutes or longer for an ambulance.

Blue lighted in eventually with irregular pulse of 160-170.

It was terrifying. I did feel that I would die before I got help.

Or, maybe, even an ambulance despatched immediately would have been too late/unable to help! The problem is, we never know what the alternative scenario might have been.
We will all die - it could happen to any of us, at any time. Whilst I accept that NHS management is inefficient, and would benefit from some form of privatisation, we need to get past this idea that medical care will keep us alive forever. None of us are immortal.

Same with me. It would allow for poorer end of life or maintenance care, with a shrug and ‘well if you don’t like it there’s always…’

I say this with experience of horrific care, and someone I know who lost her disabled relative because she was simply not cared for on a basic level in hospital and couldn’t advocate for herself.

She doesn't need "advice", she just waits for it to get better.... what medics call 'therapeutic use of time's!

It's bad out there. Heaven help anyone who doesn't have a strong person to advocate for them.

A&E can advise people like this to go to a pharmacy instead. That’s a 5 minute conversation with whoever is triaging, hardly the root cause of issues in the nhs.