SHAMEFUL!

An 83-year-old grandfather was forced to lie on his family’s camp bed in A&E as he endured a ‘shameful’ 12-hour wait for help.

George Morris, from Torrance near Glasgow, started shivering and shaking as his health deteriorated during the arduous wait to be seen by ‘frazzled’ doctors.

The pensioner had been sent to hospital for blood tests by his GP last Sunday amid fears that he had a severe infection and heart ­problems.

Last Sunday, the pensioner’s general practitioner referred him to the hospital for blood tests due to concerns of a serious infection and cardiac issues.

In a last-ditch effort to alleviate the retired training manager’s agony, distressed relatives brought a camp bed to Hairmyres Hospital in North Lanarkshire after he spent hours sitting on a plastic chair in the waiting area.

It was Mr Morris’s second visit to the hospital in 10 days, having already spent nearly 20 hours on a chair at Glasgow Royal Infirmary the previous week for the same infection.

His enraged family has now challenged First Minister John Swinney regarding the condition of Scotland’s NHS.

Daughter Claire Leckie, who was with her father at Hairmyres, challenged the First Minister to come and spend the night in an A&E waiting room himself – and said her father’s experience is indicative of the health system’s sorry state.

She said: ‘I took this picture because it could be anybody – anybody’s grandpa, dad, mum… This is the face of the NHS. John Swinney needs to see for himself.

‘As a family, we feel very strongly that we don’t want our experience to turn into a political football. I really don’t care who’s in charge. It’s not about that. It’s about showing what is happening to people.

‘The staff there are working their socks off to keep people comfortable, but the nurses and the doctors are frazzled, and it was chaos. ‘When we arrived, it was like something out of a disaster film. There were people queuing out the doors and standing up against the walls because there were no seats.’

Secondary school teacher Ms Leckie, 53, managed to locate a wheelchair for her dad to sit in when they arrived about 8 pm, but he could not sit comfortably and was shivering and shaking.

After an initial blood pressure and temperature check at about 10 pm, they were returned to the waiting room. Eventually, Ms Leckie asked her sister to bring a camp bed as the grandfather of three could no longer sit down.

She said: ‘He was shaking so much they weren’t able to get blood from him, we had to hold him still.

‘They said we had to wait for it to be analysed, and the waiting time had gone up to 14 hours. Dad was so unwell. He couldn’t sit in the wheelchair or those plastic chairs any more. He already had to do it for almost 20 hours at the Royal Infirmary the week before.

‘My sister contacted the local MSP, who replied saying they had invested £22 ­million in the NHS. That’s all well and good, but I want to know what’s going to happen if your dad pitches up at A&E next weekend – how is it going to be any different?

‘I understand there’s a log jam for beds, but there needs to be some system whereby dad and others like him can be made comfortable until we can get them where they need to be.

‘There were four ambulances waiting to offload patients, and there’s nowhere for those patients to go. The system is completely broken.’

Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie, said: ‘John Swinney should not need an invitation to see this crisis for himself – it should keep him up at night.

‘This is a heartbreaking and utterly shameful story.

‘No one, least of all an 83-year-old man sent to hospital on the advice of his doctor, should be left lying on a camp bed for 12 hours because our NHS is at breaking point.

‘Frontline staff are doing their very best in impossible circumstances, but they are being failed by a government that has allowed our health service to fall into chaos. Scots deserve a health service that treats them with dignity and care, not the scenes from a horror movie the SNP think is acceptable.’

Scottish Tories health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: ‘This harrowing case is the clearest possible evidence of the SNP’s catastrophic failure to run Scotland’s NHS.

‘An 83-year-old man forced to lie on a camp bed in A&E is not just unacceptable – it is a national ­disgrace. I’m truly upset to see this, and it is shameful that after 18 years in charge, this is how the SNP treats our elderly. John ­Swinney and [Health Secretary] Neil Gray should hang their heads in shame and see for themselves the misery their neglect has caused.’

Lise Axford, chief of nursing ­services at University Hospital Hairmyres, said: ‘We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Mr Morris and his family for the length of time he waited.’

She said NHS Lanarkshire’s emergency departments were ­facing ‘sustained pressure…with exceptionally high numbers of people attending A&E, resulting in longer waits for patients.’

Ms Axford added: ‘We fully recognise these challenges and remain committed to improving patient experience, supporting our staff and reducing waiting times.’

Health Secretary Neil Gray said: ‘I am sorry that George Morris and his family’s experience fell short of the standards we expect. 

‘We are doing everything we can to reduce long waits of this nature.’

Unfortunately, the reason our NHS Health Service is in this state is because there are currently too many foreigners living in our nation, and we just cannot accommodate them. A visit to any A&E department will demonstrate this, but we dare to complain, well, that’s another story.

It’s truly disgusting, and going to visit your A&E department now seems like a death sentence, and it definitely is if you’re over 65. And some people might laugh at my remark, but it does appear that when you reach a certain age, nobody gives a damn about it. You’ve done your bit for society, and you are of no use anymore.

However, it’s evident that our government only serve themselves, and we peasants mean nothing to them.

This man was fortunate to have family members who could provide him with something to lie on, but many would have died while they waited.

However, our health sector is unable to handle the hundreds of additional migrants that Keir Starmer is bringing into our nation. All illegals should be evacuated in large numbers by our government, beginning with those without documentation, but Starmer must go first!