Samantha Link retweetledi
"Our" saintly NHS and the consequence of not doing your job properly.
I took my mum to the dentist. While she was in the chair she had a stroke. I got called into the dentist’s room and she was just lying in a heap on the floor. The dentist (a qualified medical doctor) had recognised it immediately and had rung 999 repeatedly, explained the situation clearly, and begged for an ambulance. We kept ringing and ringing. They wouldn’t come. They wouldn’t even listen to a doctor. What hope did I have?
With no ambulance coming and my mother deteriorating on the floor, we had no choice. We carried her to my car. A dental nurse who was there jumped in with us because I didn’t know the quickest way to the hospital. I drove, talking to Mum the whole time, keeping my voice normal, telling her not to worry, acting like nothing was wrong. She mumbled, “Oh don’t worry Jo, I’ll live.” Those were her last words to me.
I roared up to A&E. The dental nurse ran inside to get help. I waited in the car, but no one came out. It felt like ages. I had to lift my unconscious mother out of the back seat in a fireman’s lift and carry her to the doors while screaming for help. A nurse told me not to handle her like that because I might cause damage – The brass neck. (I think of that idiot most days)
Our NHS finally placed her on a bed and wheeled her away without telling me where they were taking her. I did ask but no one answered. I gave her details at the front desk and explained my car was half on the pavement outside. The woman at the desk told me not to worry, she would sort it so that I didn’t get a ticket.
They put me in a side room, a windowless cupboard, just out of sight of all the many, many trolleys with people on them in the corridor. I sat there for what felt like about 30-45 minutes. No one came. They’d forgotten about me. I went to get water because I couldn’t just sit there, but then I worried and so I came back and waited some more. Finally, going back to the front desk, I asked, “Where’s my mum?!?”
I heard hushed talk, then someone walked me down to another area. She was still in the same bed I’d seen her wheeled away in, pushed to the side of the room with people walking all around her like she was in the way. I kept asking what was going on, but no one answered and just put a curtain around the bed. My brother arrived then; I’d managed to get hold of him while I was stuck in the cupboard. We stood there crying, in total shock, wondering what the hell was going on. No one was doing anything. A woman was lying there having had a massive stroke, and we were just looking at each other, helpless.
I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually we were moved to another department in a private room.
We sat with her through the night. I was at the side of her bed stroking her hand but also not wanting to because I knew that would have really annoyed her. I told her I loved her but didn’t want to go on too much because I didn’t want to scare her. At about 2 am I knew she had died.
The nurse sent me home with a plastic bag of her urine-stained clothes.
This is what happens when millions use a service they never paid a penny into while the people who funded it their whole lives are left to die without dignity.
This is what happens when rigid red tape matters more than a doctor screaming down the phone that someone is having a massive stroke.
This is what happens when common sense is banned and box-ticking is king.
This is what happens when the job is not done properly.
This is the consequence.
PS. I got a parking ticket.
#nhs #ournhs #dontbothercallinganambulance
English
