An NHS nurse has shared their harrowing testimony at the state of A&E, recalling recent tragedies including the death of a man in his wheelchair following a cardiac arrest
An A&E unit was so crammed doctors were unable to reach and resuscitate a man in a wheelchair who suffered a cardiac arrest, a nurse said.
The man died as his frantic wife screamed for help in the inhumane scene at the hospital at which the nurse works. She shared the case in a harrowing testimony at the current state of her A&E, that echoes the Mirror’s investigation this week which shows people being treated on trolleys in corridors has become the “new normal”.
The nurse, who wants to remain anonymous, told how corridors are often full at their Greater London hospital with patients waiting for – or receiving – treatment. Mental heath patients have breakdowns, equipment is tired and patients are struggling to get oxygen in the nurse’s hospital, they say.
“It was – and is – inhumane, but then I could use that word to describe a lot of what is unfolding in our emergency departments these days and in which corridor nursing, which should really only be used in exceptional circumstances, has become a daily reality without which A&E departments couldn’t function at all,” the health professional says.
It comes as a top doctor warned half the population will end up in A&E every year if more care is not delivered by GPs, community clinics and social care. A&E will bear more of the flack, it is feared.
And the nurse adds: “Even the corridor was filled to capacity with patients on trolleys, in wheelchairs and waiting room chairs, along with their relatives and other ‘walking wounded’ patients, all trying to navigate their way to and from the vending machine at the far end.
“So crammed, that when the man in the wheelchair suffered a cardiac arrest, it was impossible for the crash team to get to him to resuscitate him.
“There was literally no room to reach him, less still to lie him on the floor and perform CPR, something which has become not uncommon, along with nurses straddling patients on trolleys performing CPR as everyone watches. That man died right there in his chair as his frantic wife screamed for help.”
Their lengthy testimony, written for the Mail Online, details the “chaos” they experience “24 hours a day, seven days a week”. At one point recently, there were 167 patients waiting to be treated in the facility’s emergency department, which has a capacity of 60. It left draughty corridors full with patients waiting for care.
And it is the elderly for whom the nurse particularly fears. Admissions among this demogaphic spike during the winter months. The professional says: “A friend’s son was instructed to go to an A&E at his nearest hospital in the Midlands after dialling 111 with a suspected concussion playing rugby.
“When he got there, he was directed to sit in what turned out to be a set of old weighing scales. He sat there all night amid nightmarish scenes, and felt so unsafe that he contemplated ordering a taxi to go home. Think about what that says: if an 18-year-old, 6ft rugby player is frightened, how do the old, the frail, the vulnerable feel? It’s appalling.”
