My dd nearly died waiting for an emergency ambulance... the nhs is broken!

[finallyahappygirl]

Last Saturday my dd 8 woke up extremely poorly. She had a temperature of 39c and was complaining of a sore throat, I rang nhs 111 at 7:30am and was told I would be called by a nurse and I should not take her to a walk in centre or A&E due to the risk of her being infected with covid-19. Fast forward 12 hours my dd tried to get out of bed but collapses straight on the floor, she could not bear bright lights she couldn't not move her neck and everytime she spoke or cried she was screaming in total agony with the pain in her head. Her temperature had risen to 41c and she began losing consciousness.... I rang 999 and was advised that it sounded like meningitis and I was to strip her clothes off and try and cool her down. 5 minutes later I was rang back by a first responder who talked me through what to do and how to keep her safe, he then told me she was top priority and they were coming blues and twos but.... there were no available ambulances and he didn't know when one would become available. I totally lost it at this point sobbing down the phone that my baby is dying I don't know how to save her. He apologised profusely but said she is top priority and they will be with us when they can.... 5 minutes later she lost consciousness completely and we couldn't wake her at all even nipping her ear she didn't come round. I frantically dialed 999 only to be told very rudely there was still no ambulances and what were they meant to do. I said I would take her in my own car and they said that was too dangerous due to the state I was in and the likely medical treatment she needed immediately. 1hour and 20 minutes later the ambulance turned up my daughter still unconscious my eldest dd in hysterics thinking her baby sister had died. My partner in complete shock!!! My daughter has meningitis and thankfully is now on the mend but the outcome could have been so different it does bear thinking about really.
I totally appreciate we're in a pandemic but surely the nhs shouldn't be this broken where children's lives are being put at risk!!! Wtf has happened to this countries priorities?? Why have the government let things get to this point??

Bloody hell OP thank God she is ok.
I would definitely have put her in a car and gone straight in.
Unfortunately there has been a total lack of investment in the NHS for the whole 35 years that I have worked in it by every government during that time and it takes a crisis like this to realise it.
I just hope this is a wake up call.

Just to say last year I rang 999 twice and found they came with in a perfectly exceptible time and call handler stayed on line to they came both times. 1st lot of paremedics were great 2nd lot less so. Big up to the emrgency services. The conditions weren,t life threatening but the first time i rang I din,t know that.

@SirChing your post made me think how handy this would be I just looked at at johns courses they are postponed until 1june because of coronavirus I for one will definitely be doing one as soon as is available as op story has really put into perspective just what could happen without ambulance or hospital space x

I'm so sorry this happened.

@Weregoingonanadventure how many times does this need to be said!! She obviously didn’t know she would be waiting that long. She thought an ambulance was coming any minute and was told it would be dangerous to drive to hospital with her unconscious DD.

You’re lack of compassion is astonishing!

Anyone saying 'I would've driven not waited for over an hour' - you're responding because you have hindsight and full knowledge of what would happen.

From the OP's point of view, the ambulance could've arrived any moment the whole time.

If someone told you the next bus was coming in an hour and a half or you had a half hour walk home, you'd walk (assuming you can).

If someone said it was coming 'any minute' and you wanted to get the bus, felt it was safer or whatever, you'd wait for a lot longer than you'd think, because you wouldn't want to get 20 mins down the road and see it sail past.

None of us know what we'd do in a real situation unless we find ourselves in it.

I don't think I could've driven my child in those circumstances, I'd have been too shakey.

Big hugs OP.

Yeah stop berating the OP.

When my DD was a toddler she started choking. I froze. Completely froze. The only thing I could do was scream for my mum, who was in the kitchen. My mum got her breathing again while I had a breakdown and started hyperventilating myself.

I'm first aid trained. I've given first aid to choking children before.

Similarly the situation was completely reversed when my grandparent was found after a fall. My mum completely froze up and ran from the room (there was a lot of blood) while I immediately dialled an ambulance and administered first aid.

You really don't know how you will react until it happens. I can't stress that enough. When it's your baby, logic and common sense flies out the window.

RaspberryBubblegum That link about privatised ambulances is about non-emergency patient transport not 999 ambulances. Please don't spread misleading information.

Im so sorry you were put through that OP sounds absolutely horrific. I hope your DD fully recovers soon and you are all able to recover from what must have been a very traumatic experience. Its shocking it took so long for an ambulance to get to you, easy to say drive to hospital and I'm sure if op was told its a 80 minute at the outset she would have done, but they kept you hanging on and explicitly told you not to drive her in plus obviously you were in a very distressed state. Anything else life throws at you will be a walk in the park💐

Health services have been starved of funds for a long time now really, and not just in this country. Maybe, just maybe this covid thing will wake up world leaders and they will alocate funding thats desperately needed in this area.

There is an element of people using ambulances when they are not needed of course, but this should really be expected, all countries have their idiots unfortunately.

I am glad your daughter is better now.

Regardless of who is running the country, and what the actual split of national spending is, the fact is there isn’t an endless supply of ambulances.

There not being one available is absolutely awful but there isn’t necessarily someone to blame if they are in use. Even when it comes to priority, there could be a time when there are lots of cases that all need attention at once.

We all seem to take for granted that there will be someone there for us when we need it - an ambulance, a doctor, a hospital bed - but there isn’t an infinite reserve or resources and that’s unfortunately not always the case.

I’m so sorry you had to deal with this and I’m pleased your DD is ok. It must have been so scary.

I also understand why you didn’t drive at the time. You can only do what you feel comfortable with at the time based on what you know.

Regardless of who is running the country, and what the actual split of national spending is, the fact is there isn’t an endless supply of ambulances

Well of course not but there could be more ambulances than we have now.

It’s all about priorities.

Yes but even if the number of ambulances doubled, there could still be occasion when they are all in use with people who need them.

However, I don’t know how often this happens and I am not minimising what happened to OP.

And double the ambulances would mean more people are helped in a timely basis.

We don’t have to run the nhs on a shoe string.

The problem with doubling ambulance provision is what happens at the other end? It’s not as simple as that, unfortunately.

A&E units already have full ambulances queueing outside A&E units (pre-COVID19) because of cuts to A&E, minor injuries and walk-in provision over the years, and if you dig deeper it goes further to loss of beds in the social care sector (so the people needing admission in A&E can’t be moved on because there are no beds). Yes, increasing the number of ambulances and paramedics on the road would help people in the first instance but there is a limit to what can be done in the back of an ambulance and until the whole system is properly funded and managed, tweaking individual parts will do nothing other than add strain to other parts.

I’m talking about the NHS overall and the ambulances are part of that.

We’ve run the nhs on a shoe string, warnings about capacity have been ignored and now we lay the price.

*pay

There isn’t an infinite pot of money though. Just because we have an NHS doesn’t mean there’s an infinite source of resources. Yes perhaps there could be more investment in the nhs but there could also be more investment in schools and lots of other things that are important to people but there will always be limits on what can be done.

🌷I hope she can come home soon & there’s no lasting damage

You must have been absolutely terrified 😢. You did what they told you to do.

IF you had taken her in yourself you might have made it worse and they might not have prioritised you anyway. It’s hard to know what to do for the best- there are risks either way and it’s very difficult to accept that there’s not an ambulance ‘right here,right now’ when you need one. What you ‘know’ and what you ‘trust to be right’ aren’t often the same thing.

I’m hoping we get more ambulances or at least ‘first responders/car paramedics’ on the road. People are still suffering from other illnesses & events.

Look after yourself as well as DD you’ve had a huge scare 🌷

I hope your daughter soon recovers.

I'm sorry to say both my husband and myself have been saying this would become the norm regarding the NHS.

As a country we have signed up to the mantra of the Conservative party where money is all.

We should not forget that simple saying, health, wealth and happiness and not wealth, happiness and health as it is now.

If anything comes out of this current pandemic let us hope we learn that without health, both money and happiness mean nothing.

the mantra of the Conservative party where money is all

Sorry don’t understand this.

Do you think there would be no shortages of beds or ambulance if the Labour Party were ruling?

There have always been shortfalls in the NHS.

As a country we have signed up to the mantra of the Conservative party where money is all
What?
Ah yes if the heavenly messiah Jeremy Corbyn had been voted in, things would be completely different!!!

Money gas to be all! It’s what pays £125 billion each year for the NHS! What we need is a complete revision of what we expect and what can truly be afforded and what insurance could cover. We are just too politically divided to do it. It’s now vital and Germany has shown us why. They have a far better service but people pay extra via insurance.

has to be all!

I’m so sorry this has happened to you and your family. Hope your dd is soon on the mend. Please, please ignore people telling you you did wrong, you followed medical advice and did your best. Until you are in such a situation you never know how you will react and hindsight is a marvellous thing. In times of panic dh just freezers - just his way. Horrible to discover how broken things are 😕