A grieving husband is desperate for answers after his wife died waiting 16 hours for an ambulance. Matthew Simpson believes his wife would still be alive if an ambulance or first responder had been dispatched when emergency services were first alerted.
The 47-year-old has lodged a complaint with Yorkshire Ambulance Service and said his and others’ waits showed the system was broken. A service spokesperson said they offered their sincere condolences to Mr Simpson and said they would contact him regarding his complaint.
It comes after Mrs Simpson, 54, died in Hull on Wednesday afternoon after being taken into Hull Royal Infirmary earlier that day. Mrs Simpson had myotonic dystrophy, a muscle-wasting disease, and her husband was her full-time carer, Hull Live reports.
Her cause of death has been recorded as cardiac arrest. Her brain was starved of oxygen and she also had a diabetic hypoglycaemia, or hypo. Mr Simpson said he was now left searching for answers as to why no one came to help his wife after the first sounded the alarm. He added his financial situation left him struggling to pay for her funeral and he has since launched a Go Fund Me appeal asking for donations.
He said: “It all started on Tuesday, I got my wife up and we had breakfast but after lunchtime she started getting confused. We have a cord in our bungalow for emergencies which I pulled at around 3pm.
“I had a call back from the Ambulance Service three hours later, they asked to speak to my wife so I put the phone next to her ear and they were asking her when she was born. When it came to giving the date she just kept repeating: ‘August, August, August'. They asked her lots of questions.
“The service people couldn’t give us a time that an ambulance would be sent out because they were extremely busy. I didn’t call back for the rest of the day because although she was confused she didn’t see to get any worse, she was still talking and smiling at me.
“I went to bed at around 3am because my body had just shut down after the day. When I woke up I went to check on her at about 7.30am and she was completely lifeless, she was in her wheelchair with her eyes and mouth open.
“I called 999 straight away and they stayed on the phone with me helping me to try and resuscitate her, an ambulance came in about five minutes. They took her to Hull Royal Infirmary and later on I got a call from the doctor saying she was in a serious condition and asked me if I could come in.
“I got a taxi there and they had her on life support, I was able to sit with her, touch her face and tell her I loved her. She died at 1.45pm on Wednesday. Now I’ve got to go the Department for Work and Pensions to see what help I can get for her funeral. The doctors said her brain had been starved of oxygen and she stopped breathing but they don’t know the cause of that yet.
“We’d been married for 24 years, we were making plans for our 25th wedding anniversary. We met after she answered a dating advert I put in the Hull Daily Mail and we got married in a ceremony at the registry office in Hull.
“We could finish each other’s sentences, she was my partner and best friend. We lost our cat a few years ago so I just keep telling myself that they’re together up in Heaven now.
“My heart’s broken, the pain is extremely unbearable, if it wasn’t for my mum and good friends who’ve been so supportive I’d have wanted to go and be with her but she told me before she would never want me to do that. My anger comes from not understanding why it took 16 and a half hours to send someone to help her.
“I know she had her condition and was in a wheelchair, but if someone had come straight away she might still be here. I can’t fault the paramedics or the doctors at Hull Royal Infirmary, they were wonderful and they did everything they could for her.
“But it feels like someone sat behind a desk in the Ambulance Service decided she wasn’t a priority, they played God with her life. I don’t know if it’s the Service that’s to blame or the Government because I’m aware of the situation with ambulances at the moment and I know I won’t be the only one whose gone through this.
“This wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago, they’d have had an ambulance sent out for her straight away. The system’s completely broken, people are dying because ambulances can’t get to them in time and someone needs to take the blame, I want answers.”
Yorkshire Ambulance Service’s spokesperson said: “First and foremost, our thoughts are with Mr Simpson on the sad loss of his wife Teresa this week, and we offer him our sincere condolences. Our Patient Relations Team has received correspondence from him raising concerns about our response to this incident. They will liaise directly with Mr Simpson about specific details relating to this.”
You can donate to Mr Simpson’s Go Fund Me appeal here.
