Bristol pensioner waited all night for an ambulance
A frail and sick Bristol pensioner waited through the night for an ambulance that never turned up to take her to hospital.
Betty Weeks was suffering abdominal pain, sickness and diarrhoea when her GP called for an ambulance to take her into Frenchay Hospital, where staff were waiting to admit her.
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Betty Weeks and her husband Albert waited all night for an ambulance to come to their Bristol home
But the 87-year-old and her husband Albert waited up from 8pm until 7am the next day before, finally despairing after 11 hours, Mr Weeks drove his sick wife to hospital himself.
Mrs Weeks, of Whitehall, never returned home – she died 17 days later of an inflamed liver.
The Great Western Ambulance Service last night apologised for the distress caused by the wait and said that an investigation was being carried out into what went wrong.
Mr Weeks, a Royal Navy war veteran who took part in the D-Day landings, says that he has not stopped crying since his wife of 59 years passed away. He believes she may not have died had the ambulance arrived earlier.
On July 24, Mrs Weeks' GP, Dr Christine Hoyte from the Wellspring Surgery in Beam Street, Redfield, ordered an ambulance to pick her up from her home on Embassy Road and transport her to Frenchay, where a side ward had been prepared for her.
Mrs Weeks, a former seamstress, sat fully dressed and with her bag packed, ready to go.
But as the hours ticked by she and her husband became more desperate as the ambulance failed to show.
Mr Weeks, 85, says he called the ambulance service four times between midnight and 6.30am and was told to wait.
The former plasterer said: "I kept on going out of the house, looking up the street, but there was no sign of the ambulance.
"I would have taken her to hospital hours earlier, but instead we were told to wait.
"I'm just very disappointed that the ambulance didn't turn up. It could have made a real difference to Betty if they had come to get her when they told us they would.
"She might still be with us today if that ambulance had turned up.
"I think it's terrible that a person her age is forgotten about for all those hours. She was awake all night waiting.
"She was dressed, ready to go in, with her bag packed. She was so upset, but also so ill, so she just laid down on the settee until I thought enough is enough and I drove her to Frenchay myself."
Mrs Weeks was later transferred to Southmead Hospital, where she died on Monday of last week.
Her funeral is due to take place at 10.30am tomorrow at Canford Crematorium.
Merrice Weeks, 52, Mrs Weeks' only child and full-time carer, said that her mother was "a very special woman" who did not deserve to be treated the way she was by the ambulance service.
Miss Weeks said: "We both miss her all the time, and we just don't want anybody else to go through what we have."
Dr Hoyte wrote to the Great Western Ambulance Service.
In her letter she said: "Mr Weeks and his wife went through a great deal of anxiety and did not receive the service they expected.
"At the very least I feel the ambulance service should have contacted me as the referring GP to say there were problems and I could have advised Mr Weeks on an alternative course of action."
Great Western Ambulance Service director of service delivery Jonathan Lofthouse said: "On behalf of the service I would like to apologise to Mr Weeks for this delay and the obvious distress caused.
"We aim to provide the highest levels of patient care but it is clear that unfortunately in this case we fell short of our usual standards.
"However, I would like to assure Mr Weeks that a full investigation is being carried out so we will be able to learn from this case to ensure it does not happen again."
63 Comments
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by carole, knowle
Wednesday, August 19 2009, 5:31PM
“I am a carer for my 88 year old nan, and I have had to call an ambulance for her in the past, and sometimes had to wait a long time in the night but no where near this length of time! -D and V can be serious in the elderly as they can dehydrate quicker. My sympathy goes to the family who had to cope as I know what that is like. I cant understand why they didnt come out within the long timescale. I think it must have had something to do with the doctor calling an ambulance rather than just him phoning 999. If it didnt contribute to her death it certainly caused her to suffer.”
by Mike, Bristol
Wednesday, August 19 2009, 1:54PM
“Do not blame the ambulance service, this is the truth.
They're caught up picking up the homeless who get drunk or cold and want a sandwhich when they've spent all their money on drink, some as many as 3 times a day. fact.
On Saturday nights all they deal with is drunks and people invoved in fights, who come into hospital and thinks it's funny.
Blame general public who abuse this system, one drunk lady called £48000 pounds worth of ambulances in six months sadly when called by this woman they have to attend and take her to hospital, they're only a cetain amount of ambulances that are abused by the low life of the general public.”
by Anon, MSN
Wednesday, August 19 2009, 1:48PM
“Gerry,
Honestly, really, if it a Dr "orders" an ambulance, 9 times out of 10 it isn't an emergency....
Trust me, I'm speaking from experience here....”
by ambodal, timbuktoo
Wednesday, August 19 2009, 1:39PM
“Firstly, my condolences to Mr Weeks and his family for the sad loss of his wife. If this story is factually correct and the lady waited from 8pm, this suggests that it was an out of hours GP, not her own that made the phone call to GWAS. Out of hours GP's are notorious for calling ambulances because they don't know the patient or their medical history, are too busy too visit patients at home so end up doing a telephone consultation and calling an ambo as a precaution "just in case" there's a serious problem. This GP would of called GWAS, stating that from his visit/call he didn't find that the patient was in an immediately life threatening condition and was able to wait for a non emergency ambulance. The Medical Dispatcher would hopefully have told the GP and/or the patient that if their were any changes in the patients condition whils waiting they should ring 999 for an emergency ambulance. However, this still would not have automatically entitled this lady to an immediate ambulance. If her symptoms were still abdominal pain (albeit more severe) with D+V, with NO chest pain, difficulty breathing or loss of alertness/consciousness she would have still been classed as a low priority to be fitted in amongst the "rubbish" higher priorities throughout the night. Unfortunately, it was this lady's misfortune to be unwell on a Friday night in a large city. All but one ambulance service in the UK use this priority system because due to the sheer volume of calls there just has to be some way of sorting who gets what and when.
If Mr Weeks called back 4 times he would have been asked 4 times has your wifes condition worsened? Unfortunately, like I said before, this may not have altered the response.
I know from experience that it is the very elderly who sit and wait in pain and discomfort for hours on end for an ambulance because a)pain and discomfort does not equal how life threatening something is and b) because the elderly tend not to like to make a fuss.
Until the system is changed, occurrences like this will happen time and time again.
Despite all of this, I don't believe that the ambulance being so delayed contributed to her death, but obviously it increased her discomfort which is very sad.”
by gordon, Costa Blanca
Wednesday, August 19 2009, 1:37PM
“Opposite where i live on the Costa Blanca in a small town, we have apparments on in particular is let on an a had-hock basis usually weekly.
about two months ago an ambulabce was called, and not one but TWO turned up with a total of three paramedics
I assume it was tourists who received the service, not only that they were taken to Torreiveja hospital which when opened about 2 years ago was the most up to date hosp in the whole of Spain,covering all branches of medicine. Why was this lady made to wait,,, how many hours, wowwww ?”