The heartbroken family of an elderly man who died after waiting 17 hours for a bed on a hospital ward say he would have still been alive today if the NHS was not suffering such severe delays. Gurmukh Banwait, 75, was so shocked at what he experienced at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester when he was taken there with breathing difficulties that he had planned to speak up about it once he was home - but he passed away in hospital.
Mr Banwait's devastated family said they could not believe how badly the elderly father had declined while in hospital and wish he had never been admitted in the first place. The pensioner, from Loughborough, had reportedly started suffering from breathing problems on Boxing Day last year and was taken to hospital at around 6am on December 28 - but he died there the next day.
His daughter Balbinder Kaur said her father had to wait around 17 hours in a "cold waiting room" before he was finally admitted to a ward, LeicestershireLive reports. But Mr Banwait had fallen ill at a time of extreme pressure on the NHS, which led to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust declaring a critical incident on December 30 - the day after he passed away.
