A Scots great-gran who was left waiting for an ambulance for five hours endured further nightmares at a Glasgow hospital. Helen 'Ella' Nimmo, 89, waited hours in crippling pain after falling in her care home with a suspected broken hip.
After finally being taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital at around 1.30am on Wednesday, August 9, the great-gran of two was faced by a catalogue of alleged issues and delays, reports Glasgow Live.
Her daughter, Yvonne Bennett, told: "It was honestly such a traumatic experience. Nothing they were giving her was doing anything for her pain and she was eventually taken for an X-ray. Obviously they had to move her into different positions and I could hear her screaming and crying from the pain.
"They confirmed it was a broken hip and that they would need to operate. My mum is on blood thinning medication, which I was told had to be out of her system for 24 hours before they could operate.
"Luckily, due to her fall, she hadn't taken the previous evening's dose so she should've been okay to go to theatre after Wednesday afternoon. I was told that she would go to theatre on the Thursday morning, received a call that morning saying she would go for surgery that day and she was all cleared.
"Not even an hour after I received that phone call, her physio at the care home called me to say what a shame it was that she wasn't going to theatre anymore. At first I was quite calm as I assumed they had out of date information - I'd literally spoken to the hospital less than an hour before. Then the physio said they had been told my mum had been given her blood thinning medication on the Wednesday night in error, meaning she would have to wait another 24 hours to get it out her system."
Yvonne was later told by hospital staff that the nurse in charge of medication that night had too many patients and didn't have the time to give them all the correct care. The care home physio also informed Yvonne that QEUH staff had told the care home Ella wouldn't be returning there, and would instead be going to a geriatric unit.
Yvonne added: "I was furious. Over my dead body would my mum not be going back to her care home. The staff there all know her and are just so amazing, it really angered me that they were more than happy to have her back but the hospital had taken it upon themselves to decide otherwise.
"I spoke to hospital staff about it, but they then changed their story on the medication and said it had to be out of her system for 48 hours before operating. I just couldn't believe it. They then told me that there was a 72 hour optimal operating window for broken hips in people my mum's age, but that's all they could tell me.
"I went in to visit my mum and to speak to a senior doctor because I knew I had to get to the bottom of this optimal window thing. I managed to speak to a senior doctor and he told me if she wasn't operated on within that 72-hour window, she would have to go into palliative care and she would essentially die from it.
"You know, even after everything, I cannot fault the hospital staff. They were all so kind and so lovely and just as frustrated with the situation as I was. I really feel they were doing the best they could with the resources they were given, which is just sad. They told me that they just don't have enough staff and the QEUH is just this absolutely massive building so it's even harder to do their job properly."
After the multiple alleged delays, Ella finally received surgery for her broken hip on Saturday, August 13. Yvonne said the op went "as well as we could have hoped" but her mum was still "very out of it".
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde apologised to Ella and her family, but stated they were unable to discuss the case further due to patient confidentiality.
A spokesperson said: "We are sorry that Mrs Nimmo and her family are unhappy with her experience. Due to patient confidentiality we are unable to discuss individual cases. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde works closely with our services and local Health Care Partnership colleagues to communicate clearly with patients, their carers and their families and we apologise for any confusion and distress that may have been caused.
"We would welcome the opportunity to talk to Mrs Nimmo and her family directly to discuss any queries they may have and we will contact them to do so."
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