A dementia-suffering pensioner lay 'screaming in pain' with a broken hip while waiting almost four hours for an ambulance after falling down stairs from her home. 'Confused' Zhanna Marchenko, 87, was found by a neighbour at around 8.20pm on March 20, who called for the emergency services.
Shortly afterwards, daughter, Zanna Marczenko, got home from work to find her mum lying on concrete and 'screaming in pain' whenever she moved. Distraught Zanna, 57, feared her mother would die and alleges she called twice more for medics to attend.
Nurse Zanna claims she as told 'you just have to wait', before crews finally arrived at the scene in Thornliebank, East Renfrewshire, by 11.55pm. OAP Zhanna had suffered a broken hip and remains in Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital awaiting surgery, reports the Daily Record.
Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) chiefs have since apologised and blamed "high emergency demand". But Zanna said the "emotional and physical trauma'" of the almost four-hour wait is more traumatising for her mum than the fall itself.
She said: "The experience of waiting for an ambulance is so terrible that it's hard to describe. Mum was lying on the cold hard concrete in the stairwell, next to the door to the outside.
"At the beginning, my mother cried and shook, but later my mother stopped crying and became totally silent, but she continued shaking, and that was the only sign she was still alive. When we tried to lift my mother off the floor, she started screaming and crying.
"It was obvious that my mother had broken bones, and it was later confirmed in the hospital that she had suffered a broken hip. She was also terribly confused."
Zanna complained to the Scottish Ambulance Service three days after her mum's fall on March 23 and received an email response the following day which explained the service faced a sustained and increased demand for emergency care at the time of the call.
The reply added: "Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay in an ambulance attending that day. This must have been extremely difficult time for everyone involved.
"It is clear that the level of service provided falls short of what we strive to achieve. I recognise that this does not ease the feelings following the circumstances that you and Mrs Marczenko experienced. We always strive to offer the highest possible standards of care to our patients, and it is disappointing when people are let down."
A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesperson told the Daily Record: “Due to a high volume of calls that evening and lengthy patient handover times at hospitals, there was unfortunately a longer wait time for an ambulance for this patient.
"We triage calls to ensure we prioritise the most seriously ill patients and based on the information provided over the phone by the caller, the call was triaged as suitable to be passed to one of our clinicians for further assessment before an ambulance was assigned. We’re sorry for the delay in attending to Mrs Marchenko and hope she is recovering well."
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