Woman left untreated for five hours on trolley

Woman left untreated for five hours on trolley

23 May 2012 - by David Telford

A DOWNPATRICK man has criticised Downe Hospital staff for the way the way they treated his terminally ill wife.

Mrs. Edna McCracken, who is paralysed on one side and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, was taken by ambulance to the Downe Hospital’s emergency department around tea-time on Monday of last week.

She was suffering from lower abdominal pain and had been referred to the Downe by her GP. Mrs. McCracken’s husband, Brian, claimed it was around five hours before his wife was seen by a doctor, a claim denied by the South Eastern Trust.

Mr. McCracken said his wife was also kept on a trolley for over five hours before eventually being moved to a bed in the emergency department. He said staff couldn’t provide his wife with a special air flow mattress she requires because one wasn’t available.

“The doctor finally came to see Edna around five hours after she arrived at the emergency department at which stage she was still on a trolley. She was eventually moved to a bed sometime later.

“Given my wife’s condition she should not have had to wait so long on a hard hospital trolley. If the doctor had seen her when she initially arrived she could have been diagnosed and treated and allowed to return home. It was after 11am the following morning before she was eventually discharged,” Mr. McCracken explained.

The Downpatrick man said he was informed by hospital staff at his home around 10.45pm on the night his wife was admitted that she was being discharged when an ambulance became available. He heard nothing more and at 11am the following morning went to the hospital.

“I waited all night for Edna to come home but no one from the hospital contacted me to say an ambulance wasn’t available. Why not? Why did I have to go to the hospital the following morning to find out what was happening?

“People are being told to support the Downe Hospital and then something like this happens with a terminally ill woman having to wait an inappropriate amount of time to see a doctor. No-one has apologised for the delay in Edna being seen or that the special mattress she needed wasn’t available.”

Mr. McCracken added: “I’m angry, disappointed and concerned at what happened and hope that by going public something like this won’t happen again. I also hope lessons will be learnt and that communications between hospital staff and relatives will be improved.”

A spokeswoman for the South Eastern Trust said it has noted the McCracken family’s complaint and will reply personally. But she said the organisation’s initial investigation “shows some areas of difference.”

The spokeswoman said hospital records show Mrs. McCracken was logged onto its system at 6.05pm, was assessed by nurses within 15 minutes and seen by a doctor at 9.15pm.

“At no stage was it planned to admit this patient. Mrs. McCracken required ambulance transport home and staff made every effort to arrange an ambulance transfer, including contacting voluntary ambulance organisations, but all were busy.

“At this point, a bed was arranged overnight in the emergency department and the patient was kept comfortable until the morning when she was taken home by ambulance,” the spokeswoman added.