'Learning from this experience, I would advise readers to do what I shall do next time and dial 999' - Your Letters: September 8
PICTURE FROM THE ARCHIVE: Made famous by the film Back to the Future, the DeLorean car had links to our region. This 1981 picture shows staff from GKN Sankey's tool room at Hadley look at the car they helped to make. The chassis was produced at GKN Sankey of Bilston before final assembly in Northern Ireland.
ORDEAL WAITING FOR MEDICAL HELP
My wife was discharged hospital, wrongly in my opinion as she was still suffering from the symptoms for which she was admitted.
These included spinal stenosis meaning she could neither walk nor even stand, chronic arthritis, vertigo, high blood pressure and a urinary tract infection. I had to get her a bed downstairs and make arrangements for carers to call both day and night.
With her symptoms worsening and blood pressure rocketing, my daughter called 111 and having stressed the severity of the symptoms and my wife's acute distress, she was told a doctor would make a home call "within six hours".
This was at 2pm. By 7.30pm no one had appeared so I called 111 again and was told all was in order and the call was definitely scheduled to be made. At 9pm I rang again and was again assured that a doctor would call, but "maybe after midnight".
He eventually appeared at 2.30am on Sunday morning when we were both asleep in bed, 12.5 hours after our initial call.
What an absolute disgrace! This is the much vaunted 111 which the NHS laughingly call a "service" but which, in reality, is a cynically created system designed to prevent the paying public from "pestering" their GPs.
Learning from this experience, I would advise readers to do what I shall do next time and dial 999. Five hours in A&E cannot be any worse than the twelve and a half hours my wife had to endure at home.
Name and address supplied
HAS ELON MUSK GOT A POINT?
