Four-hour ambulance wait for disabled pensioner ten minutes from Chichester hospital

Desmond Newling, 86, said he called for help after his wife Janette, 84, fell backwards and hit her head on Tuesday, March 28 and he couldn’t lift her off the floor.

Mrs Newling, who has multiple sclerosis and dementia, was left lying on the carpet, unable to get to the toliet and in considerable distress until medics arrived from Worthing at just past midnight on Wednesday morning.

An ambulance spokesman said the Trust was sorry for any distress caused and the service prioritised those patients assessed as being in a life-threatening condition.

Mr Newling said: “It’s not that I want special treatment and I did understand that they were giving priority to those with heart attacks and strokes, and they were going off what I told them, that’s the procedure, but then four hours is a long time.

“I’m not throwing stones at the medics, they’re just following orders, it’s the system that needs to change.

“This was terrible, really terrible and she was crying all the time and if I might add, wetting herself all the time and it was a ghastly, ghastly experience and I don’t want to go through that, myself or my wife.”

The couple, of Peacock Close, who have lived in Chichester for nearly 20 years, have children and grandchildren in Australia but no relatives able to assist at short notice.

Mr Newling, who was recently diagnosed with partial sight, said he initially called Chichester Careline at 8pm which referred the call to the ambulance service.

“My poor wife, I’m never going to forget her face looking up at me asking why can’t you do something and I had to say I can’t and several times because of the dementia,” he said.

“The irony of this is if it hadn’t been so dark, it was pitch black, I would’ve walked to the hospital but I couldn’t.”

In a statement, the ambulance Trust said: “Demands placed upon our resources and delays at hospitals waiting to hand over patients means that there are times when we are taking longer than we would like to reach some patients.We are working hard to reach people as quickly as possible.”

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