ECHO readers reacted strongly to the shocking story of a 90-year-old woman left on a trolley in a hospital corridor for 30 hours.
The woman, who had suffered a fall and banged her head at the sheltered accommodation home she lives in, had been taken to Whiston Hospital, with her daughter travelling with her.
The fall, which occurred on a Saturday morning in late April, had caused the elderly lady to bleed profusely from her head, partly because she takes blood thinners to deal with other health conditions.
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Her daughter, who asked that she and her mother remain anonymous, said: "I want to be clear that in no way am I having a go at the nursing staff, they do what they do under very difficult circumstances. And the ambulance staff were absolutely amazing.
"Mum was three weeks shy of her 90th birthday at the time of this incident. She is diabetic, has third stage kidney failure, leukaemia and heart problems, and was clearly confused – both through age related memory & hearing loss and probably also as result of the head injury. The hospital is clearly very understaffed and demand is through the roof but leaving a vulnerable old woman for so long in a corridor is totally unacceptable."
A spokesperson for the St Helens and Knowsley NHS Trust, which runs the hospital said: "At times of great pressure, when demand exceeds the number of beds available to admit patients to the hospital, it is regrettable that there may be occasions where patients are cared for in stretcher triage for longer periods of time than we would wish."
These were some of the many comments received after the ECHO ran the original story.
Brenda Gorry said: "Unfortunately hospitals are vastly underfunded and Brexit saw EU doctors and nurses returning to their own countries leaving a huge deficit of medical professionals. Low pay and dreadful working rostas do not encourage new people to apply to vacancies."
Hope Jones said: "This scares me about being old with no family just left because nobody making sure you are getting the treatment you need... I really hope she is ok, nobody at that age should ever go through this."
Janet Aindow said: "Absolutely disgusting to treat anyone who is ill, let alone someone 90 years of age."
Helen Louise said: "This is the problem when there are not enough beds and the community cannot care for all of those that need it. You can wait 2-3 months for a nursing home for elderly who then stay In hospital for that time."
Kay Kam Hair said: "You can thank Boris for that, not the hospital or the workers. They're all doing what they can and more! Under paid, under staffed but they still go above and beyond."
Elaine Furlong said: "I saw exactly the same thing. I was up there with my husband, shocking scene but the staff nurses, doctors are run off their feet."
Sheila Smith said: "So sad, this government is slowly dismantling the NHS through underfunding and ignoring the situation."
Lynda Furmston said: "Whilst I agree that this is unacceptable if there is no bed then exactly what are staff supposed to do? It's about time people stopped blaming frontline staff for problems like this and look at management and the amount of people who abuse the system - they are the ones to blame for a failing system. The staff getting all the criticism will be run off their feet and completely demoralised by it all. I mean, how dare they eat cake and drink coffee during a 13 hour shift, they should carry on until they drop dead."
Karen Griffin Rose said: "This is totally unacceptable. I spent hours on a trolley. The ambulance staff had to stay with me until I was in view of the nurses' station. By the time I did get seen to I was severely dehydrated. I spent two weeks in hospital and was shocked at what I saw."
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