A pensioner came away from an almost 12-hour A&E wait with a gashed arm after a botched transfer onto a table for a scan, say his family. The 87-year-old went to A&E after a fall, leaving him with a leg so painful he was unable to stand.
Patrick Fitzgerald attended Tameside Hospital’s A&E at around 1pm on Tuesday (November 22) after a fall. His leg was hurt and his face badly bruised.
During a seven-hour ordeal, the patient waited and waited to be seen as he was ‘stuck in a wheelchair’ and being offered a hot drink and a blanket by fellow patients who were concerned for his wellbeing, according to his family. When he was finally taken for a scan at around 8pm, Mr Fitzgerald says he was transferred from his trolley bed onto the scanning table being lifted by staff, meaning he cut his arm on the retractable sides of the table.
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Patrick says he was getting cold as he sat by A&E the doors that were opening and closing, but couldn't move because of his injury. Staff did not come to check on him, leaving fellow patients to care for him, he told the Manchester Evening News .
“I’ve got a wife at home with vascular dementia and I didn’t want to leave her alone too long. I told the reception desk staff this hoping it would fast-track me a little bit but I don’t think they took any notice. It wasn’t until 8pm when I actually went through to where the doctors were.
“I was sent for an X-ray to be checked for any broken bones and one of the staff members, and two other people, manually moved me from my trolley bed by lifting me off and onto the scan bed. My arm caught on the dropdown sides and was cut.
“I’m on blood thinners, by the end of my scan it was really bleeding. No one was interested in how it happened.
“When I told the nurse who was dressing the wound how it happened, she said the way the staff had transferred me was incorrect. I should have been rolled onto a transfer board and then onto the scan machine.”
The Denton grandfather-of- three was waiting until 10pm for his results, eventually being told there were no broken bones but that he would be kept in overnight.
“I was wheeled away from A&E at around midnight. I thought I was going to a ward, but no. I was actually going to a corridor where I was left overnight,” Mr Fitzgerald continued.
The pensioner claims he was one of around six other people left to sleep in the corridor. His bed left next to a break room, Mr Fitzgerald says he ‘barely slept’ because of the music playing in the background and nurses to-ing and fro-ing.
The patient was sent home the next day with a walking frame, and the promise of physiotherapy and a home assessment, but had to call for an ambulance again on Thursday morning because he was crippled by the continuous pain in his leg.
The 87-year-old has been struggling to get in and out of bed, and cannot make it to the toilet. He claims his GP couldn't promise he would be given a call back to get help the same day, so he asked for an ambulance.
“I don’t complain often but it’s disgraceful,” said Mr Fitzgerald. “It wants showing up.”
“It was a very, very nasty experience.”
His daughter, Rachel Whitehouse, was left furious at her father’s treatment prompting a formal complaint to the hospital’s chief executive. Out of the country at the time of her dad’s A&E visit, she felt helpless as she tried to call the department to get information about his care. “I’m just not impressed,” she told the M.E.N.
“I called the hospital to tell them my mother has vascular dementia and cannot be left alone, the answer was could I get a neighbour to go in and sit with her. But all of their neighbours are elderly and in similar situations themselves.
“There had to be other patients in the waiting room making sure he had a drink. My dad seems to have just been yanked onto a scanning table and now he’s got a cut.
“Then they left my dad in a corridor all night. It’s really frustrating.
“It’s like they know they’ve got an older person who won’t complain and so he’s not treated like a person.”
The hospital trust which runs Tameside A&E has issued an apology to Mr Fitzgerald and his family, promising that they are speaking to them to ‘understand and explore their concerns’.
A trust spokesperson said: “We would like to apologise to Mr Fitzgerald and his family for the experience he had when seeking treatment here at the Trust at a time when the Trust was experiencing a period of high operational demand.
“We strive to treat all our patients with dignity and compassion, by providing safe high-quality care. We are liaising with Mr Fitzgerald and his family to understand and explore their concerns further.”
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