An ‘amazing’ mum-of-three who died just three days before Christmas was made to wait 11 hours for the emergency services. Now, her heartbroken fiancé is calling for government action before more people lose their lives in the NHS health crisis.
Hannah Marie began feeling unwell on the evening of December 18 and so her partner, James Jackman, called an ambulance at 7.20pm. But the ambulance would not arrive at their address until the following morning at 6.15am after it was delayed ‘due to demand’. The 36-year-old passed away three days later on December 22.
Hannah had cystic fibrosis - an inherited condition in which the lungs and digestive system can become clogged with thick, sticky mucus - where she was being seen by a specialist ward at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, the Mirror reports.
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Now, her fiancé has recalled his heartbreaking last moments with her as she struggled through her final breaths. James, 38, claims that if the ambulance arrived on time and treatment started 11 hours prior, it "potentially could have made a difference" to saving Hannah's life.
The "fantastic partner and mother" leaves behind three children Miley, 9, Lloyd, 12, and Nikita, 16, and a partner who says he has "got no choice" but to cope with her passing.
Hannah commonly suffered with chest infections, but James said ‘not this time’ - something was different. On the night of December 18, the former builder recalled that "she was unwell, breathing-wise".
"Her breathing wasn’t right. So I called an ambulance at 7.20pm, and just tried to make Hannah comfortable."
The couple waited for 11 hours, but James said he has ‘not heard a thing from the ambulance as to why it took 11 hours.’
He added: "But, I did have an apology from the paramedics for the delay. At no point do I have anything negative to say about the paramedics as they were great and they were really lovely. All the staff that have been involved... it is not their fault at all."
James, who has made it clear that NHS staff are not to blame for Hannah's passing, has urged the government to "act fast" and "pump more resources in" to solve the NHS in crisis "because they haven't got enough staff".
"This needs to come from the top," he says.
"There are not enough resources to cope, and they need to organise this, as whatever is happening now is not working."
James, from the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, added: "Because whatever is happening, people are dying. They’re just dying."
When emergency services finally arrived at the family home, he recalls seeing paramedic "staff exhausted," adding he could "physically see on their faces that they were tired and exhausted."
Hannah was then taken to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital but ended up "waiting quite a number of hours for a bed up in critical care."
James said: "Eventually, she got a bed in critical care and was taken up. But her blood pressure wouldn't improve and her oxygen levels weren't improving. They had antibiotics, all sorts of antibiotics driven in her. And then on the day that she died, I had a phone call."
He continued to say that he left the hospital a few hours before the call, but was informed by medics that Hannah wanted him to come in because she had been struggling overnight.
The dad recalls getting back to the hospital on December 22 "very fast" where, sadly, he only had ten minutes with her before she passed away.
Devastated James then revealed that his last few moments with his fiancée was the hardest moment of his life, especially as "she knew she was going".
"I just told her I loved her," he said. "And that was as much of a conversation as we had because she was trying to breathe through her high pressure oxygen mask."
The fiancé believes that Hannah's care could have been "implemented 11 hours previously" and that could have "well made the difference" in saving her life.
"Having those antibiotics earlier" potentially would have made all the difference, he adds.
News of Hannah's passing has left her young children completely "heartbroken" as they "had such a fabulous relationship with their mother."
He continued to say: "She was a very mumsy-mum and was very outgoing... she really was. The whole thing had just left us numb."
While they are being supported by their school, James says that he is also being supported by friends and family and the cystic fibrosis ward at Hannah's hospital, who have also applied for a £750 grant for support.
But the heartbroken single dad says that despite the support system he has in place, he has been left feeling like he has "lost his right arm."
He said: "It's destroyed me. I am in the lowest of places as you can imagine. It's just numbing. I just cannot get my head around it, and I don’t think I've 100% quite processed it."
But James says that he must continue to look after his family, saying: "I've got to cope, I've got four kids. I've got no choice. I’ve got to cope."
The cost of the funeral is another thing that is weighing heavily on James' mind, admitting that “it's going to be quite a difficult thing to achieve," as he is relying on the donations from the GoFundMe page due to not being able to work as a result of a spinal injury when he was a builder.
He is also a full time-carer for Miley, nine, who has autism.
Aside from the fundraiser, James says that close family have been supporting them, where "Her cousin, Daniella, a boxer, is trying to raise some funds – doing 38 rounds, to do so."
And after attempting to spend Christmas together as a family, because that "was what Hannah would have wanted," James says that he has organised a meal with close family at the venue the pair were meant to get married at.
After getting engaged on a leap year, February 29 2020, where Hannah proposed to James, the pair were looking to get married at Westmead Hotel in Redditch, Birmingham.
Coincidentally, the date chosen for Hannah's memorial is also her birthday, January 7, where James admits that he will attempting to give a speech in front of 20 people.
James has gone on to describe his fiancée as "loud-mouthed and passionate", revealing that she was well-known in her community because she had a small business setting up balloon displays at parties.
While her health "made life debilitating and had its issues for her," she put it aside and continued with her business, which James says "became more of a hobby" - right up until her passing.
He added that Hannah "was a fighter until the very end. She was amazing, a fantastic partner and mother. Just brilliant."
A GoFundMe page has been set up by Hannah's neighbour to help the family with financial costs relating to the funeral, where over £2,000 of a £10,000 goal has been raised. You can donate here.
A spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "Firstly, we would like to apologise to the family of Miss Houghton for the delayed response and offer our condolences.
“Sadly, we are seeing some patients wait a very long time for ambulances to arrive as a result of long hospital handover delays.
"The pressures we are seeing in health and social care means that when our crews arrive at A&E they are unable to handover patients to hospital staff and therefore cannot respond to the next patient in the community.
“If there are long hospital handover delays, with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital, they are simply unable to responding to the next call, which can impact on the care of the patient in the community.
“We are working incredibly hard with our partners to find new ways to reduce these delays, so that our crews can respond more quickly and save more lives."
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