She tried to reassure her husband that the crew should definitely be close. Maybe they were struggling to find their farmhouse in Wiltshire in the dark. “But I could see I was losing him,” he said. She gave it to KARPA’s husband and urged him: “Do not leave me”. But when the paramedics arrived an hour later, it was too late. Jeanette Carpenter, 70, a stoic and sensible man, admits that it may have been impossible to save her husband. “But I think he would have had more opportunities if they had arrived here earlier,” he said. It’s the kind of sad story that gets very common. Across England, but especially in the south-west, ambulances very often do not reach patients on time. Richard Carpenter had been released from hospital two days earlier after undergoing heart surgery. The night he died he complained of pain in his back, side and arms and his wife called for help at 22.37. She called two more times, telling call operators that she thought her husband had suffered a heart attack. Eventually, help arrived at about 4 in the morning. “The paramedics did what they could, but it was too late,” Carpenter said. Her husband, a loving father and grandfather with a great sense of humor, died after hemorrhage – an accumulation of blood in the pleural cavity. “I feel so frustrated,” he said. “Is it the kind of country we live in now?”
“My lips were blue. It was very bad ‘
Stephen Webb, the 49-year-old mayor of Trouro, is paralyzed and prone to a condition called autonomic dyslexia, which can send his blood pressure soaring. The last time she hit him, he thinks it almost cost him his life. “Blood pressure like this can lead to stroke or death in 15 or 20 minutes,” he said. “Normally my caregivers treat it, but this time I was bleeding. I was sweating, my heart was pounding, I was in a lot of pain. My lips were blue. It was really bad. “ An ambulance was called. “They said it was Class 1, the next ambulance available. Twenty minutes passed and I called and asked where the ambulance was. It was very dangerous for me, scary. “They said they were sending an ambulance from Bodmin.” It was 27 miles away. The ambulance that finally arrived, 90 minutes after the 999 call, had actually arrived from Saltash, 50 miles away. Rescuers stabilized him. Steven Webb feared for his life while waiting 90 minutes for an ambulance. Photo: Paul Richards PR4Photos As a politician, Webb understands why things go wrong – the lack of bed space in hospitals, the pressure on the care system that means people can not be discharged even when they are well enough, Covid’s ongoing impact. “The situation is getting worse,” Webb said. “People also have heart attacks and strokes and their loved ones have to be taken to hospital. People die because of this. The system is the problem. Ambulance crews are the heroes. They will continue with this, they will go to work, they will do the best they can “.
Because the southwest is having a hard time
One of the heroes, a southwestern ambulance worker, described the situation as “terrible”. Before Covid, he said the employee – who asked not to be named – would do between six and 10 jobs in a shift. Now if the first person to be called has to go to the hospital, he expects this to be his only job for the entire shift. “In some hospitals we wait outside the hospital for 10, 11 or 12 hours,” he said. “There is nothing more discouraging than listening to a general show that comes out for a heart attack or car accident and there are no resources to send. “It’s terrible to think that your loved one needs help and that there is nothing we can do about it because we are stuck in a hospital.” There are reasons why the southwest is particularly difficult. The NHS Foundation Trust Ambulance Service (SWASFT) covers 10,000 square miles – one-fifth of mainland England – much of the rural area. It takes a long time to move and hospitals are far apart. The trust also serves an older population than other parts of the UK and has to deal with an influx of 23 million visitors a year. SWASFT seeks to address the situation by introducing measures such as ambulance liaison officers, “drop cars” dedicated to assisting cyclists and special mental health teams. However, one spokesman said there had been high demand for a long period. “From time to time we face delays in delivering our patients to the emergency departments, which prevents our crews from getting back on the road for other patients. “This is due to the pressures on the entire health and care system,” they said. “We are working with our partners to address these delays and are working hard to reduce the number of patients waiting to be discharged from the hospital so that beds can be made available for those in need of ward admission.” SWASFT has asked people with non-life-threatening conditions to use other services such as 111, GPs or pharmacies where possible. But this weekend, as always, there were ambulances parked outside hospitals – a dozen on Saturday afternoon outside the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, another 12 early in the evening at the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath.
“Not the world we want to live in”
Late last month, the Bath and North East Somerset council wrote to the government expressing concern over the case of a 93-year-old man who collapsed during a classical music concert at the town’s Christ’s church. The priest in charge, Lor Chabli, a former surgeon, knew the man had broken a bone and someone called 999. “It took six or a few minutes for us to get through,” Chabli said. They tried to make the man comfortable, using socks – pillows for the knee – to support him and the long, long wait began. “He lay there all night,” Chabli said. It was almost 12 hours before the ambulance arrived. “This is not the world we want to live in,” he said. The leader of the Liberal Democrat council, Kevin Guy, wrote to the government, arguing that “unacceptable pressures” on the health and social care system were endangering lives. He said a quarter of the beds in the RUH were occupied by people eligible for discharge but stuck in the system, “largely due to lack of home care”, adding: “It is not uncommon to see 15 or 20 ambulances queuing up. out of the emergency department “. Daryl Major, from Swindon, waited 14 hours for an ambulance after getting stuck between his bed and a radiator. Photo: provided Daryl Major, 32, who suffers from fibromyalgia, a condition that causes extensive pain and extreme tiredness, said he was left in pain for 14 hours after falling into the gap between his bed and a radiator in his seventh-floor Swindon apartment. “I was stuck in the gap of 2 legs. “I just could not move,” he said. “I was crying from the pain.” His father, Ian, 67, a former police officer and part-time bus driver, found him and called 999. Major spent an entire night in this painful, uncomfortable position. “I called them four or five times,” said his father. “They were very good, but they just said they were very busy and would come to us when they could. “It simply came to our notice then. I know that ambulance crews do the best they can. They just want to do the best job for their patients, but they are not allowed to do their job properly. “Something has to change.”
