Northfield pensioner forced to wait four hours for ambulance

Dec 29 2009 by Jasbir Authi, Birmingham Mail

A FRAIL pensioner who fell over and broke his shoulder was forced to wait over four hours before an ambulance finally arrived at his home.

Fred Smith, who lives on his own, in Northfield, slipped over in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The 84-year-old was unable to pick himself up and it wasn’t until later that morning that his son, Nick, who came round to visit, realised what had happened.

Nick immediately called the emergency services at 12.20am, but it wasn’t until 4.30pm that the ambulance arrived.

“I’m really annoyed with the ambulance service because they kept us waiting for so long,” he said.

“They apologised and said they were busy, but we’re dealing with a man who is 84-years-old here, and a man who was in a lot of pain and couldn’t move his left shoulder.

“To wait so long is unbelievable.”

West Midlands Ambulance Service apologised for the lengthy delay which was caused because all the ambulances were dealing with calls of a higher priority.

Nick had gone to visit his father to deliver a paper and help him make his dinner on Sunday morning as the pensioner struggles to get around and has to use a walking stick for the majority of the time.

He slipped over at about 3am, after waking up and attempting to make the short trip to the toilet.

Because he didn’t had any strength to get himself back up, Fred was left slouched on the floor for around seven hours before Nick arrived and saw his discomfort.

Fortunately with the help of his son, Fred managed to get up but was left feeling uncomfortable, cold and in a lot of pain.

After finally arriving in Selly Oak Hospital, he waited another two hours before he was seen to.

“He went without any medical care for about 15 hours and all the time he was in pain,” added Nick.

Hospital staff strapped up Fred’s arm and have kept him in to monitor his condition.

A spokesman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: “All 999 calls are categorised and based on the information provided it was established that the fall was more than six hours prior to the call and the patient was fully alert and no longer on the floor, The call was passed to the clinical triage desk and it was felt that an ambulance was required but only within two hours. Due to the extremely high number of calls, all ambulances were dealing with serious or life threatening emergencies. At 2.24pm a paramedic re-contacted the patient to check on his condition and apologise for the delay.”