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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

97 Yr old Gran waiting 8 hours for an ambulance with a broken hip!

417 replies

LoveCherryTree · 26/11/2024 20:08

My Gran, 97 years of age, given to this country in World War, paid her taxes and NI all her life. She fell today in her home at 12pm, she has a broken hip, my Father called 999 and it is now 8pm and still no ambulance.
She can’t go to the loo as she can’t get up, my Father who has Parkinson’s and my Uncle, who has throat cancer, both in their 70’s, sitting with her.
This country is broken beyond repair, I even tried to get a private ambulance and they said that it won’t make a difference because all the front line ambulances are sat at the hospital with patients inside because they can’t get them into the hospitals….I despair, so it’s better for my 97 year old Gran to be in agony and wet herself, I just can’t believe it! Anyone know a member of parliament I can talk to about this? I’m utterly disgusted!

OP posts:
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WearyAuldWumman · 27/11/2024 20:07

DemelzaandRoss · 27/11/2024 19:51

@RosesAndHellebores Thank you.
I do have Osteoporosis & this was my second fracture. Both innocuous reasons eg coughing.
In reality they are acutely painful & take far longer than 6 weeks to heal. Also painkillers don’t really work.
I hope you have had a Dexa scan to check bone density.

Yes, this used to happen to my mum. I remember a doctor saying to me once "But there's no pain with osteoporosis!"

What?!

RosesAndHellebores · 27/11/2024 20:26

DemelzaandRoss · 27/11/2024 19:51

@RosesAndHellebores Thank you.
I do have Osteoporosis & this was my second fracture. Both innocuous reasons eg coughing.
In reality they are acutely painful & take far longer than 6 weeks to heal. Also painkillers don’t really work.
I hope you have had a Dexa scan to check bone density.

Oh yes. 5th break in five years due to osteoporosis for which I'd already had three years of zolendronate infusions and then maintenance doses every 18 months. And wham another vertebrae went.

Because I was under 65 I didn't quite meet the bar fir the next line, teriparitide by injection, on the NHS, but I could have it if I paid £2,400 for a two year course.

It's extraordinary, NiCE says a displaced dorsal radius fracture should not be reduced with gas and air alone. My local hospital ignores this because it's only guidance. NICE guidance says teriparatide for my level of osteoporosis can't be given for under 65's. The NHS has to follow this guidance. If it saves money the uidance can be ignored, if it costs money the guidance cannot be ignored.

Notwithstanding the fact that I had to pay for a private consultation and MRI scan to identify the fracture because I wasn't listened to.

When I went to my GP to raise concerns, she asked me to touch my toes. I could get down to mid shin. She therfore told me at week 6 that if Incoukd do that I couldn't have a broken vertebrae and therefore she wouldn't refer me.

The system stinks.

ForGreyKoala · 27/11/2024 20:31

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What have you seen on this thread which makes you think she isn't capable? What a nasty response. I know a woman who is 102, lives alone with no help and is extremely capable. Anyone can break a leg/hip, it doesn't just happen to the elderly you know.

ForGreyKoala · 27/11/2024 20:36

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My mother broke her hip and had another three years of fairly good quality life. Yes, she ended up in care, but that was due to mild dementia, not her hip. She had as much mobility after her fall as she did beforehand. If you had suggested she was ready to pop off she would have not agreed with you. You sound very ignorant.

AllAboardTootToot · 27/11/2024 20:36

thats horrific!

I witnessed first hand just how fucked the NHS is.

Took my 9month old to a&e and was struggling to breathe and had a seizure. Called for an ambulance to be told it was an hour wait, thought sod this I’m 15 mins away, will drive.

17 hours we waited to be seen and in the end only got taken through as I kicked up hell at how much she was struggling. She is positive with RSV and in nicu hooked up to oxygen fighting to get better.

Its broken beyond repair. That is simply not forgivable for me.

RosesAndHellebores · 27/11/2024 20:58

AllAboardTootToot · 27/11/2024 20:36

thats horrific!

I witnessed first hand just how fucked the NHS is.

Took my 9month old to a&e and was struggling to breathe and had a seizure. Called for an ambulance to be told it was an hour wait, thought sod this I’m 15 mins away, will drive.

17 hours we waited to be seen and in the end only got taken through as I kicked up hell at how much she was struggling. She is positive with RSV and in nicu hooked up to oxygen fighting to get better.

Its broken beyond repair. That is simply not forgivable for me.

Edited

I agree.

FormerlyPathologicallyHappy · 27/11/2024 21:32

I hear the Dutch Gp standard response is to take paracetamol for everything.

croydon15 · 27/11/2024 21:35

TuesdayTea · 26/11/2024 20:59

The people I know who work in the NHS say it’s mainly due to wasted resources and the whole of the NHS being badly managed and structured. They’re convinced even with the number of people in the country, it could cope much better if it was better set up.

This l saw the utter waste while volunteering some years ago. It does not necessarily need more money just restructuring from top to bottom.

DemelzaandRoss · 27/11/2024 22:14

@RosesAndHellebores Yes, it does. You have my total sympathy, all so wrong. It seems we just have to go it alone.

ForRealTurtle · 27/11/2024 22:25

In 2010 the NHS was independently judged to be the most efficient healthcare system in the world.
But since then posts like admin have been cut, This reduces efficiency.

RosesAndHellebores · 27/11/2024 22:50

ForRealTurtle · 27/11/2024 22:25

In 2010 the NHS was independently judged to be the most efficient healthcare system in the world.
But since then posts like admin have been cut, This reduces efficiency.

Edited

Guess what? It isn't 2010 any more.

Perhaps other nations have moved on and the UK has stagnated.

We had a home in France pre 2010. DS broke his arm in the UK in 2005 and in France in 2006. France was better then and is better now.

Thekormachameleon · 27/11/2024 22:53

RosesAndHellebores · 26/11/2024 22:02

You would think they could at least have flying paramedics to give pain relief and catheterisation for the duration of the long waits.

@LoveCherryTree you must complain. In the short term phone back and very calmly note that you will hold the service responsible for any deterioration in her well being. Email your MP now and at least it will be picked up at 8.30ish tomorrow morning by their office. Email your local councillors and publicise it on Next Door, local paper.

It's an absolute disgrace. The public locked down for the NHS during covid. They have not locked out for the public. Instead they have been on strike and been give increases above anybody else.

Kick up a stink, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

How do you think that's going to help ?

It isn't the ambulance service that's the issue here and I assure you, telling them you'll hold them responsible won't make a joy of difference but it will make the call handler feel awful

RaininSummer · 27/11/2024 23:14

I am glad your Gran finally got treatment. This thread is scary and depressing. Getting older myself now and have only ever bothered the NHS for childbirth and mammograms and smears but terrified to that when I need it one day it basically won't be there in any timely, useful way.

What I want to ask about is the suggestion to drive your sick family member to a and yourself. If you do this, are you still waiting behind the people who are outside in the queuing ambulances? I assume you must be else they would never get their patients through the door and into beds?

despairnow · 27/11/2024 23:23

Thekorma

I've no idea why you have reframed Covid lockdown.
Lockdown was to stop transmission of disease to protect the public.
NHS workers worked in a Covid infected environment to help sick people.

AMonkeysUncle · 27/11/2024 23:23

Every time an ambulance came out for my elderly mum, they’d ask her if she had a do not resuscitate instruction. She didn’t know, she’d say yes. That’s fine. Long story short, she would be patched up and chucked out. Until they sent her home sick and she had a massive stroke and then died two weeks later. I don’t think anyone cares about the elderly anymore. A nurse told me, “we have younger people who need us more”. Dealing with the lack of joined up thinking during a pandemic and beyond nearly gave me PTSD. The saddest thing though, you should see the state of the room mum was sent to die in. Peeling wallpaper. Decrepit ceiling. Shit on the windows that didn’t open. What a place to go.

Wrapt · 27/11/2024 23:26

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ForRealTurtle · 27/11/2024 23:27

My mother had very good care before she died in a hospital last year.

PiggyPigalle · 27/11/2024 23:48

croydon15 · 27/11/2024 21:35

This l saw the utter waste while volunteering some years ago. It does not necessarily need more money just restructuring from top to bottom.

Storing old stock. Something new comes along like a dressing and all stuff in use now gets stored.
So many hospitals lost their canteens due to needing space to store.
Give it to Ukraine, burn it, do something other than storing it.

Wrapt · 27/11/2024 23:53

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margegunderson · 27/11/2024 23:57

ohwhataluvverly · 26/11/2024 20:58

FloralGums · Today 20:31

The Tories totally screwed up the NHS. It will take years for Labour to fix it sadly

A big massive part of this is not Tories or Labour messing, it's over population including mass migration over stretching services intended for far,far fewer people- which instead of anyone actually getting to grips with, the Labour party deal with by encouraging it and encouraging more house building. It's crazy.

There are other factors too like loss of European work force and loss of good workers demoralised by the fact they cant provide good care because the overstretching means they are understaffed.

but by far the biggest problem is too many people trying to use a free service intended and funded for far fewer.

I hope you gran gets seen soon @LoveCherryTree I can't imagine how distressing that must be.

Overpopulation AND loss of the European workforce? Can't have it both ways. I'd say it's under resourcing myself as most of the people who have migrated to the UK in recent years (I assume that's the point you're making) are younger, working, and paying taxes and NI. Austerity policies decided that the government was just going to cut resources to this useful stuff and give tax breaks to the very wealthy.

ForRealTurtle · 28/11/2024 00:20

The NHS actually has fewer managers than comparable sized organisations.

SleepyRich · 28/11/2024 02:15

RaininSummer · 27/11/2024 23:14

I am glad your Gran finally got treatment. This thread is scary and depressing. Getting older myself now and have only ever bothered the NHS for childbirth and mammograms and smears but terrified to that when I need it one day it basically won't be there in any timely, useful way.

What I want to ask about is the suggestion to drive your sick family member to a and yourself. If you do this, are you still waiting behind the people who are outside in the queuing ambulances? I assume you must be else they would never get their patients through the door and into beds?

Definitely not, if anything you'll be seen more promptly if you make your own way to hospital. Ambulances are really only of benefit for those to sick or injured to be brought by any other means.

There's a massive problem with people recognising some warning signs/that they or their child should have an a&E checkup, that it might be an emergency, but think that means they need to call 999 for a lift to hospital! Our absolutely typical patient that gets taken to hospital is asked to take some of their own paracetamol for their symptoms, walks onto the ambulance, has a routine set of OBS, gets dropped off the other end. 45% of calls in my trust are discharged by paramedics, not even a chat with a Dr on the phone (i.e. presentation so minor/well appearing patient just needed self care advice or signposting to GP - these are people who've deemed to call 999!).

If we as the public expect the emergency service to be dealing with the worried we'll, we absolutely cannot ever expect them to also be managing emergencies promptly so have to take the sacrifice that the pedestrian knocked down by car will routinely wait 30-60minutea, the elderly broken hip at home 2-8hours.

Might vary across the country, but in my city at the moment cat2 calls currently have a 2hr response (this is abnormal breathing, stroke, heart attack). Yet the huge majority of people live within 15min drive of the hospital. Why the hell would you sit and wait 2hours when you could be at the hospital in 15minutes unless you absolutely had no choice? I know if any of my loved ones have chest pain or a stroke I wouldn't consider calling 999. But I goto work all day and night hearing "well I've been having this pain in my chest for about 6months now, GP says it's reflux and the meds do help, but I was thinking I should get a second opinion and TV said to call 999 for chest pain,what do you think???"

When you arrive at A&E with chest pain you'll get ECG and bloods early on - if they're abnormal and indicate treatment you'll get escalated rapidly. If they're normal then there's a wait. If you arrive by ambulance then you have the ECG which can quite often be normal even in a heart attack, but you don't get the bloods until you're booked into the hospital. The ambulance patient waits around 2hours for the response, maybe 20mins in the house, then driven to the hospital, then 2-4hours in the car park being monitored, then the important blood test only after being booked in. (although currently changing rules and soon we'll be dropping chest pain looks well I to the waiting room with out any handover.

YDBear · 28/11/2024 07:54

It’s just not possible to get an ambulance any more in most places and a waste of time trying unless someone is in imminent danger of death. You would be better to go to the nearest van hire, hire a van, drive it to her home, take a door off its hinges, move her onto the door, stick her in the van, and drive to the hospital.
I’m being serious here. People have to assume there is no ambulance service any more and just improvise. I know it sounds like something out of the Third World, but public services in the UK are Third World, it’s just that nobody wants to believe it.

knitnerd90 · 28/11/2024 08:00

FormerlyPathologicallyHappy · 27/11/2024 21:32

I hear the Dutch Gp standard response is to take paracetamol for everything.

This is what I hear from friends who have lived in NL as well.

porridgecake · 28/11/2024 08:11

This government has done absolutely nothing about or for social care and support services for elderly people stuck in hospital. What are families supposed to do? Parents have to work full time to pay for their homes, feed their children. Gone are the days when mum would stay at home and look after everyone 24/7. Carer's allowance is nowhere near enough to compensate someone for giving up a full time job, it certainly isn't enough to pay the rent or mortgage.