The husband of an elderly woman left lying on the pavement for five hours with a broken hip because she was not considered a priority for an ambulance has slammed the way she was treated as a ‘disgrace’.
Winifred Soanes, 95, who as a child survived her home being bombed during the Blitz, is recovering in hospital from surgery after falling while out shopping in Christchurch, Dorset, last week.
When members of the public and her husband Arthur, 92, repeatedly called 999 for an ambulance, the dispatcher informed them that Winifred was not a priority case.
Furious Arthur has hit out at how Winifred was treated: ‘At her age, it is out of order. I can’t imagine that all the other ambulances were going to more important calls than a 95-year-old woman lying in pain and out on the bloody road for five hours.
‘How can that not be a priority? It’s disgraceful.’
He told how other shoppers rallied round to prop her head up with shoe boxes from market stallholders and a pillow from a nearby pub.
Staff at Mountain Warehouse supplied her with sleeping bags and charity shops gave blankets and hot water bottles to keep Winifred warm. At one point she cried out how she thought she was going to die there.
Others brought food and coffee to Arthur, a diabetic and war veteran who would not leave his wife’s side.
He developed a throat infection afterwards which meant he was unable to visit his wife of 61 years for the first few days.
“Winifred had surgery on her right hip and will be in the hospital for three or four weeks while she heals,” he stated.
Arthur went on: ‘When she fell down I held her head out of the gutter and shouted around for anyone with a phone to call for an ambulance.
‘I asked her if she was in pain because you don’t move someone with a broken leg or something and she said she had dreadful pain in her hip.
‘A man dialled 999 straight away and he said they were busy but it will be on its way. We waited 10, 20 and 30 minutes and it didn’t come.
‘He called again and had to go through the same rigmarole and answer the same questions again. They said they were extremely busy and this went on for four or five calls.’
David Lovell was the one who saw Winifred’s fall.
He said: ‘I was told that Winifred was not a priority having been given the information about her vital signs. The conversation became heated between myself and the operator.
‘We had a 95-year-old woman lying on the pavement in the freezing cold and her diabetic husband sat in a chair in the cold. There were five or six 999 calls that were made over five hours from different people.
‘They said every time they were very busy and she wasn’t a priority.’
Arthur said it wasn’t until a man ‘with a medical background’ pulled over and then phoned 999 that the ambulance came.
He said: ‘I don’t know who he was but I think he was a medical chap. He got his phone out and really gave them a talking to. He said if this woman dies then who is going to be responsible? He said that she is 95 and that he couldn’t be sure he could keep her awake much longer.
‘People really put themselves out for us, I can’t thank them enough. They had homes to go to yet they stayed for five hours with us.
‘Someone gave me a wheelchair and a blanket and sleeping bag because I was shivering. She is being well looked after in hospital and at least I can see her now.
‘She is a very resilient person and has been through worse. She was bombed in the Second World War. Her father was away in the army and her mother took her to visit her gran and that same day a bomb hit their house and there was nothing left of it.
‘You soon realise how lonely you can get. Win and I are soul mates and we do things like watch The Chase on TV together and try to answer as many questions as we can between us. I can’t wait until she comes home. I will be able to look after her.’
Arthur did his two years of National Service with the King’s Royal Rifles and was stationed in Germany in the 1950s and after his time with the army, he became an engineer working in timber preservation.
Seventeen years ago, he and Winifred relocated to Christchurch from west London.
A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service, said: ‘We are sorry that we were not able to provide a timely response to this patient. Any occasion where the care we provide falls below the high standards our patients deserve and rightly expect is unacceptable.
‘Handover delays at emergency departments remain one of our biggest challenges. To ensure our ambulances are available to attend the next emergency call within the community, we need to be able to hand patients over within the 15-minute national target.
‘We continue to work hard with our partners in the NHS and social care, to do all we can to improve the service that patients receive.’
Jane Chandler, executive director of quality patient care at the South Western Ambulance Service, said: ‘We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Mrs Soanes for the delay in our response. The delay was unacceptable and falls below the high standards of care we aim to provide.
‘Delays in our care is not something we want any of our patients to experience, and when a delay does occur, it’s taken very seriously. Our response to Mrs Soanes will be reviewed and any learnings will be implemented, to help improve our service to patients.
‘At the time of Mrs Soanes’ fall, our service was under extreme pressure, and our response time was impacted by this. This demand was further compounded by hospital handover delays and system pressures within the wider NHS and social care.
‘We continue to work incredibly hard with our partners in the NHS and social care, to do all we can to improve the service that patients receive.’
At 95 years of age, with a broken hip, laying outdoors in the freezing cold weather, feeling tremendous pain, I would say she was indeed a ‘priority.’ The ambulance service could have at the very least sent out a responder who could have assessed this lady and given her some pain relief. The ambulance service is sadly failing in its responsibilities, and I’m sure a degree of ageism enters into the decision to respond quicker or not.
It appears that the NHS does not consider older people to be a priority.
Triage at a call centre is read off a card and that’s how they assess priority. Unless someone is not breathing or has sustained a head injury, then you are not a priority, age is irrelevant, but age is not irrelevant, especially when you are 95 years of age. It was bitterly cold out, and had this woman fallen asleep she would have certainly died, therefore she was a priority.
I hope that anyone at the end of the phone at a triage call centre is never in the same position, and if they ever are, then I hope that they can reflect on how cold and uncaring they had been to this lady.
Unfortunately, it’s our government, not the call handlers fault. They are given a job to do and they just do it like a robot. However, common sense tells a person if it’s a priority, as this was. I understand that other things are going on like cardiac arrests, people bleeding out et cetera, but being 95 years old and in the freezing cold with a broken hip should take priority as well. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be the person making that decision – the system is broken.
Sadly there are too many calls and not enough ambulances, and it must be extremely stressful for call handlers. Day in and day out the ambulance service let people down. Some people have to wait four hours after having a stroke or heart attack for an ambulance – it’s basically like playing God, potentially being forced to determine who lives and who dies.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 