Man waits 16 hours on plastic chair in 'war zone' A&E as patients line corridors
An A&E department was described as a "war zone" after a man had to wait 16 hours for treatment for a suspected heart problem.
Under-pressure medics at University Hospital Monklands in Lanarkshire had to deal with corridors filled with patients lying for hours on trolleys due to a shortage of beds. Justice of the Peace David Baxter was having heart problems and had to sit overnight on a hard plastic chair in a waiting room last Monday before he saw a medic - and wasn't alone in experiencing lengthy delays.
He told how about another 30 patients, some apparently seriously ill, also waited for hours to be seen. David, 69, said: "People were lying on trolleys in corridors, there were at least 20 lined up. They were saying, 'We can't let anyone through the doors because there are no beds.' I was disgusted at what was happening all around me."
David told how one woman sat for six hours before being seen despite having suffered a suspected stroke. Another elderly woman sat all night waiting to be given intravenous antibiotics for a serious bladder complaint and ended up delirious, unable to recognise her own daughter.
A patient with pancreatitis was taken to the treatment area and given morphine before returning to the waiting area. David told how a doctor came out and apologised at one point, saying he couldn't operate until she'd had a CT scan. At 2pm on Tuesday she was sent home from the waiting room and told to return on Wednesday at 8am. Another patient who had suffered a suspected heart attack left at 9.30am after a night on a chair, saying she could no longer sit on the plastic seat.
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When David, who sits at Glasgow's Justice of the Peace Court, was eventually taken through to the main A&E area to be seen, his wife Jan, 71, said it was "like a war zone". David's marathon effort to be seen by medical staff started when he began to feel ill on Monday morning and he was referred the emergency department by a GP.
The couple were shocked at the lengthy delays in A&E (Tony Nicoletti/Daily Record)He said: "When I got to Monklands I told the receptionist they should be expecting me because out-of-hours should have sent my details over. They said there was a 14-hour-wait to see a doctor. I said, 'You're joking,' but they said, 'No, 14 hours'. I said to Jan to go home. After 10 minutes I was taken in by a nurse to have my blood pressure, bloods and temperature checked. They confirmed what out-of-hours said, that my blood pressure was high and my heart rate low. They told me to take a seat in the waiting room. That was at 11.20pm."
"I was next seen at 12.30pm on Tuesday. I was invited through the doors where a nurse checked my temperature and blood pressure before I was told to go back to the waiting room." David said that was the first time such checks had been done in more than 12 hours. He went on: "No clinicians came to the waiting room to check if anyone's condition had worsened. Not once did anyone come out and offer any of us a cup of tea or even a glass of water. And during the night they changed the waiting time from 14 hours to 17 hours."
When David finally got into the treatment area at 2.30am, the doctor said he believed David had a virus which was affecting his heart and he was sent for an X-ray, which showed an issue with two heart valves. He needs a 24-hour scan but has no idea when it will be carried out. He was sent home to await an appointment.
The waiting times displayed on the hospital screens (Supplied)David's wife Jan said: "Who knows when he will get that? I have had a back issue but I was told the waiting time for an appointment was 52 weeks, then it went up to 77 weeks and now it is at 79. David said: "My main issue is how we were treated. They knew there were long waiting times but clinicians should have at least been checking on people every few hours."
Criticising the Scottish Government, Jan said: "I wish the government would stop pretending everything is OK. They say we are better than in England but that is no comfort to the people waiting. Elderly people shouldn't be treated like this, it is shocking."
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "That people in a major hospital in a developed country waited the better part of a day for potentially life-saving care is an outrage." He blamed "an NHS on its knees due to the nationalists' ministerial disinterest". "I have called repeatedly for an inquiry into avoidable deaths caused by the crisis in emergency care."
Judith Park, NHS Lanarkshire's director of acute services, said: "All three of our acute hospitals have been very busy this week. We are asking patients to bear with us during this extremely busy period and to be kind to our staff who are working extremely hard to see, treat and either admit or discharge patients as quickly as possible. We are aware patients are waiting longer than we'd like. This is why we are asking people who think they need to attend A&E, but it's not life-threatening, to consider the alternatives."
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to [email protected]
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