On New Year’s Eve, Phil Cole wanted to be in an remoted mattress on a specialist most cancers ward.
What he bought, his spouse Sara says, was a “filthy” makeshift cubicle within the plaster room of an emergency division.
“There was an old bed in there which the paramedics themselves had to make up,” Mrs Cole says.
“The bed had blood stains on the side of it. The sink was full of used bits and bobs, and the floor was filthy with stains and tissue paper from previous patients.”
She was “worried then, because he’s so vulnerable”.
Mr Cole, 62, has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His remedy reduces his physique’s immunity, making coughs and colds extraordinarily harmful. The motive he wanted pressing medical consideration within the first place was as a result of he had caught flu and collapsed at house.
“When I phoned 999 straightaway, they said it’s going to take hours,” Mrs Cole says.
“And obviously I was very concerned: his temperature was still really high, he was just sleeping the whole time; I had to wake him up to talk to him constantly.”
When an ambulance workforce finally arrived, Mrs Cole says they had been “brilliant” and advised the couple there was a mattress for Mr Cole within the most cancers ward on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
It was the place he’d been handled beforehand and meant he may get the specialised care applicable for his most cancers analysis.
But on the best way, the ambulance was diverted.
“The co-ordinator said they were nine ambulances deep at the Queen Elizabeth,” Mrs Cole says, “and the only place available where he could be isolated was at the Manor Hospital in Walsall.”
That, she says, was an “utter nightmare”.
“Everybody was saying he needs to go to the Queen Elizabeth, and then he ends up in the plaster room of the emergency department in Walsall.”
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Mrs Cole says the room, the place sufferers are usually handled for fractures, felt “unsafe”.
“When they changed shift, the sister that came on was going crazy, saying this isn’t acceptable,” Mrs Cole says. “I was really worried that he’s going to pick up something else. I voiced my concerns but the staff were inundated. There was just not enough staff.
“I may hear them shouting to at least one one other, and you realize they didn’t cease the entire time I used to be there. But for me and Phil it was simply the worst expertise ever.
“I was just frightened to death.”
Mrs Cole says her husband stays on the similar hospital, now in a room on a ward, however he’s “stuck there” whereas he waits for a mattress on the most cancers ward on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
“I’m really sad,” she says, “because I’ve always been proud of the NHS and proud that we have that in England, you know, and I’m not anymore.
“It’s simply clearly not working.”
A Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust spokesperson said: “We apologise to Mr Cole and his spouse that they discovered the room on this situation.
“Unfortunately, at very busy times, such as we are currently experiencing, things will occasionally be overlooked.
“We would encourage folks to alert us on the time they spot any points so we are able to look to deal with them in a well timed method.”
Source: information.sky.com”