When I smashed up my ankle last November, I started off in Warrington Gen, as that was nearest to where I slipped. If I had got an ambo, I'd have requested my local hospital, but that ambo would have taken nearly 5 hours and I was lying on cold wet concrete. So Mrs S and a fellow car charger dragged me screaming into the back of the car and she took me instead. Anyway, I digress. There was a lot of politics between Warrington and Stockport. I mean, I thought the "N" in NHS stood for National, but it seems if you break your ankle outside your area, they don't want to fix it!
The surgeon told us that local cases would take precident over me. All the time, the need to fix my joint in place properly was getting more and more urgent; it had to be done before the two week deadline.
Luckily, I was eventually transferred to my local hospital, but there was not a bed for me. Then they found me a bed in the Maternity wing. Then the lift was broken and the nurses on the ward asked if they could take me back to Warrington? Meanwhile, my bed in Warrington had gone to someone else....it was like a Carry on film...
But when I did finally get on a ward, post surgery, I heard story after story from people who came onto my section about how A&E was rammed and there were trolleys all down the corridors, out of A&E and down the main corridors. There were ambos outside who couldn't discharge their patients into hospital care, so we're looking after them in the vehicles.
And this was nearly 12 months ago.
