General Discussion
You may die waiting!
During my time living here the past 4 years it has become very obvious that you could die waiting for an ambulance. Only today that being Monday as I'm posting rather later. An elderly lady had a fall outside the co-op with a bad and bleeding head wound. The ambulance was called and it had taken fifty, yes fifty minuets to arrive. If it had been a heart attack the person would have died what an appaling and unacceplable situation. I can only make comparisons from my previous abode that an ambulance would have been on the scene within 5 minuets.
So......when the sunny uplands arrive perhaps we'll have a better ambulance service?After all
there will be more money to spend on the NHS (assuming of course that the ambulance service hasn't been privatised..........)
I am sure if it was an heart attack it would have been prioritised differently. There is a lot of information to gather to decide the priority and where to attend.
S, Unless you are are qualified medical person how would you know if an elderly person, or any person for that matter, has not gone into cardiac arrest. The plain fact is that upon calling any emergency service you have to go through a third degree with the call centre, that takes valuable time. I spoke to the attending paramedics and they told me they were the other side of Exeter when they finally got the call. What I'm trying to say any call on the 999 number should go into effect straight away. The emergency service's in this country is appalling and shameful and has nothing to do with Brexit, the problem has been plainly obvious years before.
@S is obviously correct here. the contact centre operator is the medically trained person and it's they who'll ask the correct questions in order to gain the correct prioritisation.
That said, if that elderly lady was my mum, I would be very upset at the thought of her lying on the pavement for so long. This scenario is only going to occur more often thanks to the continuous austerity cuts by the Tories.
Absolutely agree that it is austerity and cut backs to public services that has caused and is causing lots of problems
Still........when we have our new (even further to the Right) Conservative government I'm sure lots of money will be pumped into our public services.
They'll even publicly fund flying lessons for pigs.
Oh what sunny uplands await us all.
@Brooklyn Bridge in an ideal world the paramedics would get there instantly and all calls would have the same priority of "emergency" but that isn't how it is in reality. a head injury where the person is conscious and talking (I don't know the details obviously or if this was the case) and a heart attack are different priorities.
Changing tack only slightly, my husband has had to be admitted to hospital twice in the last month. On the first occasion I called 111 and what a shambles that was! When he was very ill again last weekend I took him to hospital myself, this saved about four hours based on my precious experience. It's all a shambles and needs urgent medical attention!
Sorry to hear that Margaret, hope he is ok now. I agree it needs addressing but we have a government where this will never be their priority. Cutting corporation tax further will only mean less income to spend so further cuts to essential services.
I agree that this government under Cameron will never to anything to improve it as they all use private health care! Sadly the same is probably true of many of the elite Labour and Lib Dem MPs. None of them have any idea of what it is like to live the life of an ordinary person in this country.
I have said before until the public start to really question the MPs, don't let them off with soundbites and lies, ask them for evidence then we won't get better politicians. MPs are flawed across all parties and allow biases and their own interests to dictate their policies.
I would like to see the end of career politicians to start with.