An elderly woman was left lying in the cold street for nine hours with a broken hip because there were no ambulances to take her to hospital. Mary Kinsella's desperate family repeatedly called the ambulance service in Cornwall after the 72-year-old fell and injured herself on Tuesday afternoon, but they were told there simply wasn't one available to take her to hospital.
Mary's granddaughter Bethany told CornwallLive her grandmother fell while she was out walking her dog in Helston, Cornwall, on Tuesday afternoon. The dog bolted when it saw a cat in Albion Street, leaving Mary tumbling to the ground. An ambulance was called at 1.35pm to help the pensioner - but one didn't turn up until 10.30pm that night.
To make matters worse, Mary was still in an ambulance sat outside Royal Cornwall Hospital - formerly and still commonly known as the Treliske Hospital - more than 24 hours after her fall because there were no beds available inside for her. Bethany said their family felt helpless as they waited for the ambulance to arrive, and they couldn't move her because she was in agony.
Mary is expected to have a hip replacement operation on Friday and is on morphine and has had a nerve block to ease her pain until then. While Bethany said their family were fuming at the situation with the lack of ambulances and beds available, she was full of praise for the kind passers-by who stopped to help Mary when she fell.
With Mary still lying on the cold ground as night fell, dozens of people stopped by with supplies including blankets, hot water bottles and flashlights as well as snacks to keep them going. Handover delays at the emergency department were blamed for the lack of available ambulance crews to help Mary.
Beth explained: "Nan fell whilst walking the dog - our dog saw a cat and ran and took nan with her. We were regularly (hourly) calling 999 and the handlers just kept reiterating that there was nothing they could do and that they were extremely busy. The paramedics themselves called us from the ambulance queue at Treliske to keep us informed but the only update was that nan was top priority but they couldn’t predict the wait time.
"They arrived at 10.30pm. She is still in an ambulance now, I went into work this morning and was under the impression that she was in hospital finally as the doctor called me to say that she has broken her hip and that she was going to be in for a hip replacement on Friday, but then when I went back it turns out she is still in an ambulance as there are no beds.
“She is settled as she is on a lot of morphine and had a nerve block to ease the pain before the operation.”
She added: “Our family are very shocked and appalled at the situation. It’s upsetting to see anyone you love in pain and injured, never mind your 72-year-old grandparent laying in the freezing cold for nine hours without any assistance at all.
“We couldn’t move her because she was in complete agony. She has an underlying heart condition which we kept reiterating to the emergency services as she was getting chest pains throughout - my mum and my brother had been there since they got the call to say it had happened, I turned up at 6pm when I finished work and she was still shaking from shock and pain.
“You hear stories about this stuff but you just don’t believe it. I think more people need to know about this because something needs to be done. I absolutely dread to think about what’s been going on to other poorly/injured people over Cornwall that we don’t hear about.
“The paramedics were just amazing, they were so apologetic and of course, this is none of their fault at all. They are mentally, emotionally, and physically drained working in such tireless conditions. - the main reason I am doing this and wanting to put the story out there is because the paramedics pleaded with us to do so, they want more people to make a stand and be made aware so that we can all speak up and hopefully a change is made.
“The community were amazing. We had so many people checking we were okay, bringing blankets, hot water bottles, hot drinks, flashlights, snacks etc.”
A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: “We are sorry that we were unable to provide a timely response to Ms Kinsella. Our ambulance clinicians strive every day to give their best to patients, but our performance has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, partly due to handover delays at emergency departments.
“Health and social care services are under enormous pressure. We are working with our partners to ensure our ambulance clinicians can get back out on the road as quickly as possible, to respond to other 999 calls within the community."
Regarding ambulances outside Royal Cornwall Hospital, the boss of the new Integrated Care System, Kate Shields, has also recently said that queues of ambulances waiting for hours outside Treliske are a stain on the NHS that "no one is proud of" . She added that bringing together organisations involved in health and social care across the area, from hospitals, councils and other social care providers, will help reduce the number of bed-blockers in hospital and ensure that people do not end up queuing outside emergency departments when they shouldn’t be there in the first place.
A spokesperson for RCHT said: “Our staff are doing everything they can to get patients into the emergency department; none of us want anyone to experience long waits in ambulances. We currently have nearly 120 people in our hospitals, and a similar number in community hospitals, who are waiting to go home with support or to other care settings. If we could make those beds available, we would not have ambulances waiting.
“We are working tirelessly to get a steady flow of patients out of the emergency department and our assessment units throughout the day and, where needed, admitted onto our wards. We’re using our discharge lounge for those patients ready to leave hospital, to help us free up beds and ambulances as quickly as we can.
“The local health and social care system remains under sustained pressure and we are working together to keep people safe and make sure they can get the right care in the place that’s most appropriate for their needs.”
