Pensioner left screaming in pain for hours before being told ambulance won’t come
An 87-year-old woman spent two hours ‘screaming in agony’ while waiting for an ambulance before being told her husband would have to take her to hospital himself, their daughter claims.
Audrey Tickner suffered a fall at home in Burry Port, south-west Wales, last Thursday which broke her arm in two places.
Her husband Ronald phoned 999 and was told to wait for a call back from a nurse, according to daughter Karen Wilson.
But emergency services rang back nearly two hours later to tell him no ambulance could be sent, forcing him to make his own arrangements.
Ms Wilson said her father, who is 83 and suffers from severe arthritis and the effects of cancer radiotherapy, spent an hour trying to get his wife off the floor onto a bed, and another hour hoisting her into his car.
X-rays showed her mother, who has Alzheimer’s, diabetes and osteoporosis, had suffered two severe breaks – leaving one bone so sharp it risked puncturing her skin.
Ms Wilson, who is lodging a complaint with the Welsh Ambulance Service, said there was ‘no explanation given at all’ for its failure to help.
She said: ‘That is the state of supposed NHS care now. I’m horrified and extremely angry.
‘[My mum] is at home with no medical help and surviving on paracetamol every four hours.
‘I can’t believe an ambulance did not come. I just could not believe it. What would have happened if my dad did not have a car?’
Interim assistant director of operations ambulance response for the Welsh Ambulance Service, Sonia Thompson, said: ‘We were really sorry to hear about the experience of Mrs Tickner and would like to extend our apology to her and her family.
‘We have experienced significant and well-documented pressures on our
ambulance service in recent weeks, which culminated on Monday, July 20, in a business continuity incident.
This essentially meant that demand on the service exceeded our capacity to respond and this continued throughout that week.
‘We hope that we will be able to speak directly with Mrs Tickner and her family to understand exactly what happened.’
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