Mum slams ‘corridor-care’ as A&E struggles to cope

Shirley Kennedy

A Heywood mother has spoken out angrily regarding accident and emergency provision at The Royal Oldham Hospital after her daughter, aged 11 was looked after by ambulance paramedics in a corridor for almost two and a half hours last Sunday evening. During this time, she was immobilised and strapped to a spinal board, suffering from severe pain as she waited to be seen by hospital staff and have her injuries assessed.

Shirley Kennedy’s daughter, who has asked not to be named, had earlier suffered a horrific fall in Queens Park and was rushed to hospital with suspected neck and spinal fractures.

Although Mrs Kennedy was quick to praise all the paramedic and hospital staff for the care given to her daughter, the scenes that she describes is one of a system working under extreme pressure that is struggling to cope.

At one point, Mrs Kennedy told Rochdale Online, there were no less than FIVE teams of ambulance paramedics giving care to patients in a corridor who were waiting to be seen by hard-pressed accident and emergency staff and a sixth one outside treating someone inside the vehicle. She pointed out that this meant that there were five ambulances off the road and unable to respond to 999 calls.

Writing on our online Forum, she went on to say, “What we experienced today was no exception. This is now the norm. Paramedics routinely treat emergencies in the corridor at Oldham Royal because casualty (as well as the hospital) is full and ambulances containing patients in need of emergency care are turned away to God knows where.”

Mrs Kennedy’s daughter’s pain was so severe, despite being given gas and air by paramedics, that nurses had to be called out of the busy Accident and Emergency Department to administer strong, morphine-based painkillers as she awaited treatment.

In the same corridor and a nearby bay, other patients including an elderly man and a young baby were also distressed and suffering pain as they waited for the backlog to be cleared so that they could be seen by a doctor in order to have their conditions assessed and treated.

As well as making a formal complaint to the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, Mrs Kennedy has also written to MP Jim Dobbin, calling on him, “…to do as much as you can to highlight what we and others experienced yesterday and how starved the emergency NHS provision has become locally.”

After talking to staff on duty at the time and also to other patients, Mrs Kennedy believes that this situation she encountered on Sunday is not only unexceptional but that staff are afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs.

Also writing on the Rochdale Online Forum, local health campaigner Jean Ashworth, a former chair of the council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee said, “The only way to deal with this situation we have been left with is for more people like [Mrs Kennedy] to complain and if need be go public on the suffering that is happening. Thankfully the outcome was ok…”

Mrs Kennedy has also written to senior representatives from the council in order to make them aware of the situation. In May of this year, Council Leader Colin Lambert who is also the council’s Lead on Health signed up to a ‘statement of intent agreement ‘with local health organisations including Pennine Acute to “transform and enhance local health and social care services’ in the borough.

Mrs Kennedy’s daughter is now recovering at home with her family who remain angry and concerned at her experiences and are anxious to ensure that there is an immediate improvement in the provision of emergency treatment.

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/72069/trust-reveals-aims-to-boost-patient-care-and-cut-costs

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/69975/the-future-of-rochdale-infirmary-and-community-services
www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14651&PID=297045&title=emergency-nhs-provision#297045