In a truly shocking story it has emerged that an 85-year-old woman who fell down a flight stairs at her home was disgracefully made wait for more than 2 and a half hours before an ambulance responded to her son’s 999 call.
The disgraceful incident was revealed earlier today when the woman’s son named Eddie told RTE’s Joe Duffy about the appalling delay. The woman who has not been named is understood to have had a hip operation less than four years ago and was left in agonising pain after she tripped coming down the stairs at her home in Artane. However an understandably angry Eddie told host Joe Duffy that despite immediately contacting the 999 operator at 11:30 am this morning, the ambulance did not arrive at the family home until approximately after 2 pm this afternoon.
A clearly annoyed Eddie told the programme: “I got a phone call back at 12:20 pm saying that the ambulance wasn’t dispatched,” he told RTÉ’s Liveline. “They told us they were up to their eye balls and would try to get an ambulance out to us as soon as possible.” He continued: “I’m flabbergasted… I know everyone has their ups and downs but this is just shocking [especially] given that the hospital is just ten – five minutes away in the car. “This is the way the system has gone. It’s terrible.”
Eddie went onto say that he and his sister were going to bring their mother to the hospital themselves, but were physically unable to lift her into the car because she was in “too much pain”.
Eddie explained: “After the fall she said she was ok but a hour or two later she wasn’t able to move and she can’t walk. “We tried to get her up and put her in the car because we live five minutes [in the car] from Beaumont but she’s in too much pain. “If we could get her into the car, we’d be straight up to the hospital.”
An upset Eddie also revealed that whilst he was speaking to the emergency operator earlier this morning, he described his mother’s symptoms and how much pain she was in, but was told not to give her any fluids or food “in case she needed an operation.” Before he told host Duffy: “It’s just such a terrible sight.” “To see an 85-year-old woman sitting on a chair in such pain. You can see it in her eyes, she says she’s fine but you can see it.”
Source The Independent.ie