Barwell: Last July, 78-year-old Jacqueline Hulbert collapsed at home and lay on the floor for 11 hours while waiting for an ambulance.
His son, Matthew Hulbert, saw his “uncontrollable” result and went public to highlight the crisis within the state-funded healthcare service.
Jacqueline, known as Jackie, died of sepsis two days after being admitted to the hospital.
While there may not be a direct link between her death and her long wait for an ambulance, Matthew has spoken with an NHS public health provider in crisis about the family’s experiences.
spoke to Hulbert AFP in Barwell, a small town 100 miles (160 km) north of London, where he is a local councillor.
The 42-year-old has retold his story many times but still gets emotional when he remembers his mother’s ordeal last summer.
On the morning of 10 July, he was woken at 4:30 am by a call from the local council, saying that his mother had collapsed overnight and activating the emergency alarm she was wearing.
A friend drove her away and they called for an ambulance at 05:01 am.
“A paramedic in a car finally arrived 11 hours later at 4:00 p.m., and then she called for an ambulance, which arrived about half an hour after that,” he said.
“My mother was then taken to a hospital where it was found that she had contracted an infection which turned into sepsis and she died two days later.”
serious choice
Matthew stayed with his mother during the wait when she could not be moved because she was complaining of pain in her ribs and her son feared a worsening of his injury.
He gave her food and drink and kept calling the emergency number 999 to ask when the ambulance would arrive.
“It was completely indecent,” he said. “I felt very lonely at the time because you want to help your parents. You don’t want to see them suffer…and there was little I could do.
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As her life was not seen to be in danger, her mother’s case was not considered a priority by the overloaded ambulance service.
Charlotte Walker, Head of Operations for Leicestershire at East Midlands Ambulance Service said AFP A statement said that “we are deeply sorry that we were not able to reach the patient sooner”.
She said the delay was being investigated but the service was experiencing “an ongoing level of life-threatening and serious emergency calls” and was working to “prioritise the sickest and most seriously injured patients”. Was staying
Stories regularly appear in the UK media that testify to the deep crisis in the NHS due to austerity measures and the consequences of the pandemic.
At the end of last year, patients with an ambulance call classified as Category 2, which includes heart attack and stroke, waited an average of 90 minutes for help.
Due to problems arranging further care, many patients are then staying in hospital for longer than necessary, taking up beds needed by new arrivals.
In England, almost one in five ambulances wait more than half an hour at a hospital door to drop off a patient.
‘is not acceptable
“Since what happened to mom, I see it on social media every day now,” Mathew said.
“As we sit here right now, people will be in desperate situations, waiting for an ambulance and waiting for countless hours… and that is not acceptable.”
Nurses and ambulance workers have staged several walkouts, with a joint strike on 6 February to protest these conditions and to demand better pay.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has introduced a new plan to ease the pressure, announcing that the NHS will get 800 new ambulances and 5,000 new hospital beds.
Matthews, who said he does not want to think about whether his mother might still be alive if she had been treated sooner, has urged politicians to tackle the problem head-on.
“We need cross-party talks to resolve this issue,” he said.
“These are people’s real lives. People are really suffering from what’s happening, families are being destroyed.”
