A desperate patient who spent six days and five nights waiting for a ward bed in an overcrowded hospital filmed her ordeal for Rishi Sunak and begged the Prime Minister: “Please do something.”
Pneumonia-stricken Rebecca Bridgman, 38, had severe breathing difficulties and should have been immediately admitted to a specialist respiratory ward.
But she said she “lost the will to live” after she was left in a makeshift cubicle in an overstretched A&E, which she called “a warzone”.
Rebecca never made it onto a ward after she begged doctors to discharge her so she could be cared for at home in Dover.
Her distressing clips and mobile phone voice notes, recorded at the William Harvey in Ashford, Kent, less than a week ago lay bare the chaos in Britain’s NHS hospitals.
In one film, Rebecca sobs into the camera as she begs Mr Sunak to “sort out our NHS”.
“It’s just so bad,” she says. “The poor nurses, there’s nothing they can do... I’ve been here so long... I don’t know what to do.”
Rebecca, who suffers from epilepsy and brittle asthma, said: “Rishi Sunak needs to see my videos because he needs to see what his party have done to our NHS.
“It was like being in a war zone – I lost the will to live being in there. Other patients were calling it the Wild West show.
“Lives are being put at risk because patients are lying in corridors or in cubicles.
“There was a woman who was 103 years old next to me, screaming in the night. She shouldn’t have been there.
“It’s not the fault of the doctors and nurses. They are on their knees.”
Rebecca could not sleep in the A&E which was strewn with other patients lying on trolleys, chairs and even the floor.
In one exchange with an equally exhausted nurse, she asks why she is still in the noisy A&E after four days.
The nurse replies: “There are no beds in the hospital... I don’t have anywhere else to put you.”
In another harrowing clip Rebecca, wearing breathing equipment, says: “I literally cannot cope with this anymore. I’m so poorly.
“I’m in an A&E room, I should be on a ward... This country needs to sort out our NHS. I’m really sick and I am suffering. Please do something, please.”
East Kent Hospitals, which runs the William Harvey, said: “We are very sorry Ms Bridgman spent so long in our emergency department.”
It added: “Safe patient care remains our priority and our staff are working extremely hard.”
Labour ’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said the Tories have left the NHS “understaffed and unable to care for patients", adding: “Labour has a plan to train the doctors and nurses the NHS needs.”
GMB union chief Rachel Harrison said staff are striking for patients like Rebecca, adding: “The NHS has more than 130,000 vacancies after 10 years of underfunding.”
But the Department of Health and Social Care insisted its care recovery plan will help reduce pressure on hospitals.
