I know IABU, blatantly using this for traffic. Emergency situation, no ambulance still, and need advice

[TheChinkOfaGlass]

Hi everyone

My Auntie had a fall this morning and has seriously hurt her hip. Luckily she was close enough to the bed to get herself up on it.

999 said it is not an emergency and to contact 111, she was in severe agony and is 78 years old. I rang 111 who after assessing her, decided she did indeed need an ambulance.

I had originally offered to take her to the hospital but she lives on the top floor of a maisonette, and is unable to sit up (so a car journey would be no good and I would be unable to carry her to the car anyway. I did get help but she declined due to the inability to even sit up).

Her husband is disabled so isn't much use (I mean this in the nicest possible way, he is trying his best) other than keeping an eye on her.

So we could be waiting hours for an ambulance but in the meantime she is soaked through on the bed due to urinating on herself. I am going there in the next 30 minutes.

Is it safe to roll her to change the sheets to make her more comfortable? I don't like the idea of her lying in a soaking bed while she waits. I am also scared of causing more pain/damage by moving her. We do not know what's wrong, she thinks it may he her hip. I just don't know what to do. I have never experienced this kind of thing.

Her partner has managed to change her underwear but when the bed is so wet, it wouldn't really make a difference.

Hi OP I hope your Aunt is doing OK, it’s unbelievable really that people are waiting so long. I thought it was terrible when MIL waited 4 hours in the Home Counties. Have you tried any of the private ambulance services? There is one called All Wales Ambulance Services Ltd.

Just heartbreaking Your poor auntie
I hope the ambulance is with you soon

Hope your Auntie gets to hospital v v soon. An awful situation and from reading the thread not uncommon.

What a dreadful situation. I hope your Auntie is now in hospital being cared for. So sorry you've had to go through this awful experience.

My sisters partner is in AE tonight with chest pain. He has a cardiac history but still waiting since 6 pm…fucking shocking…I am not a routine swearer!

Don't roll her. Better to be wet than risk further pain and damage to a broken bone. Keep her warm and give her some pain relief if you have any.

Have you tried ringing her GP practice to see if they'll do an emergency home visit?

I'm so sorry for you and your Aunt. My elderly Mum loves with us she's 83 and we live a good 40 mins from our hospital in Bath.

I'm utterly terrified of her needing emergency help. She has heart failure so it's possible we could need one at any time.

As an aside I went to the RUH a few days ago with Dd who is pregnant and I counted 25 ambulances lining up down the road and out into the main road waiting to be admitted.

I'm so sorry OP, I hope she is picked up soon.

@TheChinkOfaGlass Sincerely hope your poor elderly relative will recover from this.
Bloody Tories.. They have run the NHS and social care into the ground.
It's actually frightening.

I really feel if the Tories had their way, they'd treat elderly injured people with a humane killer rather than spend money on social care.
It's just dreadful.
Such a greedy, self~ serving bunch of graspers.

@nolongersurprised is completely right when they say it’s bed blocking. Lack of carers and care home places mean well patients waiting months in hospital, so no one can move from A&E and in from an ambulance. MN is full of threads saying refuse to be a carer and tell them you need a carer to discharge parents from hospital.
Hospitals are putting out please for relatives to take well patients home and care for them whilst awaiting care.
care industry is a shit job and paid peanuts and has some quite abusive staff because of this.
private nursing homes are crazy money. Why don’t they build giant nursing homes, government run and will cost half the money. The £1-2k people pay per week sure enough isn’t going on amazing staffing levels with staff on minimum wage and all told to send into hospital if the patients develops so much as a cold. The care system is broken, fix that and you fix the other end.

don’t shout at the doctors and paramedical and nurses. Chances are they are close to quitting or moving abroad and are exhausted and firefighting and if they do it’s one less staff and more shit.

At midnight the practice will be closed and it will be out of hours GP.

I agree completely.
We need large state run care homes, staffed with trained people who are paid a decent wage for what they do.

A young nurse at a GP surgery said ''People are basically living too long..into advanced dementia with no quality of life''
It's creating a very old generation that can't be properly cared for.

Care homes are run {From what I gather} for pure profit, and nothing else.
The costs are extortionate!

We were told a 5-28 hour wait today

Shocking! Hope there is something happening for you soon

vote accordingly, people. most just think of themselves, sadly. I would imagine after 12 yrs of this shit worsening, some might get the drift. The trickle-down isn't coming, is it?

Good luck Op, I hope to god your aunt gets the help she needs.

The ambulance service trust I work for have declared an internal major incident tonight.
Hundreds and hundred of outstanding calls with no resources to send.
Oldest C3 today was just shy of 24hours with a mountain of C2s in front of it.
Call handlers and dispatchers are broken, many have had the most horrific calls during the day - caused by the delays.
Road staff are beaten. We have literally nothing left to give. We have vehicles off the road, crews with no vehicles, no beds in EDs. The futility of apologising to a relative of a loved one who has died before we reached them.
The Nth non conveyed patient that day who called as they 'just wanted to be checked over' and knew exactly how to obtain one.
The endless stream of bullshit broadcasts, and the one genuine job out of the lot gets buried in the inane diatribe.
111 - completely overwhelmed. Something close to 15000 ring backs on their list.
I truly believe our trust is on the brink of collapse. And I'm fucking terrified.

That’s absolutely awful.

Health is devolved in Wales and run by Labour btw

This issue is way past a political problem now. The NHS was never designed to deal with all of us living longer. We need a complete rethink. It's hard to know how we fix it quickly.

In terms of what to take to hospital - snacks, phone chargers, those power blocks if you have them, iPad/books, clean clothes

Hey OP, I hope the ambulance has arrived by now. Just wanted to say if she is wet and you don't want to move her, try drying the sheets with a hairdryer. You will get most bits except the parts completely under her but you should be able to get her legs and most of the surrounding areas dry. Plus the air will reach places that towels wouldn't without moving her.

I hope she is doing okay xxx

this country is a fucking mess. our poor elderly people are being left on the floor/in bed for hours on end in pain, it breaks my heart

what is the solution dare i ask, the NHS isn’t fit for purpose, I know that much

I googled, and two places in UK are currently in crisis.
London and Wales.
How on earth did it get this bad..

Something needs to change, urgently.

The wealthy are sitting pretty with ''Bupa''..the rest of us?
Going to Hell in a handcart.

A rapidly ageing population and no old people's homes for them to be cared for in seems to be a huge problem.
Plus people wasting resources wanting ''to be checked over'' according to the post above who works for the Ambulance service.

There definitely needs to be proper triaging, but if people know what to say.. then they likely get seen while someone dies of a cardiac arrest..
It's frightening how run down the NHS has become, but the lack of decent care homes is an important factor.
Beds are blocked with the old who are ''Well'' but can't be discharged anywhere and their families won't care for them, either to free up a bed, and therefore , ambulance.
{Just from what I gather from reading what nursing staff are saying}

That’s what I mean by not knowing the solution, it’s not just one thing is it 😞 it’s so bloody sad

Much love to your aunt op. Hoping the ambulance has arrived now and shes feeling more comfortable. xxx

@oakleaffy bupa isn't the be all it used to be either. I was reading an article on the weekend about how they have increased their costs for older folk by such a margin that most of them can no longer afford it. One gentleman in his 80s was quoted £120k for one year of cover, even though he had been with them decades.

Looking after the elderly with multiple health problems appears to cost a fortune. I agree that we need large state run old people's homes everywhere - but we will need the money to build them and we will need to find the staff which is a bigger problem!

Hope your aunt is feeling more comfortable now, poor lady x