An elderly pensioner fell and broke his neck in the A&E department at University Hospital Wishaw after being admitted with a suspected stroke.
John Creechan, who will be 90 this month, lives in a sheltered housing complex in Hamilton. He was taken to the hospital after the care worker who visits him at home raised concerns with his family that his speech sounded slurred.
They immediately raced over to his home and in agreement with the health worker they called an ambulance. Paramedics agreed with the initial assessment and whisked John over to A&E.
John’s nephew Frank Sweeney, who lives in Wishaw, told Lanarkshire Live: “The carer wasn’t happy with his speech and got the paramedics in who thought he may have had a stroke. They took him down to the hospital and my sister called later on and was told he was being put into Ward 9.
"She went up the next day to visit him and he was lying in a bed with a neck brace on. The nurse ushered her into a room and said he’d had a fall in A&E and had broken his neck.
“She got the shock of her life and asked how it happened, given he was in with a suspected stroke.
“He’s got to wear the neck brace for 12 weeks. She phoned me and when we went back down to the hospital no one could tell us anything, apart from they were waiting on a report from Accident & Emergency.
Frank claims that they have yet to receive an acceptable explanation and want to highlight John’s plight to ensure it doesn’t happen to another vulnerable patient.
He continued: “How can this happen when a 90-year-old has been admitted with a suspected stroke?
“And why didn’t we get a phone call to alert us that this had happened?
“A nurse in the ward told us he had an ‘unwitnessed fall’ but there’s been no apology. Surely someone must have seen something, or done something to enable it to happen.
“I’m not blaming the nurses in the ward, they are only telling us what’s on his notes. We’ve since heard that they were readying him to be discharged from A&E when this happened.”
Frank says his Uncle John has a vague recollection of needing the toilet and thinks he may have fallen off a commode, but he can’t really remember.
“You’d think they would supervise someone who is 90 and has had a suspected stroke," he added.
"It’s not a case of us looking for compensation or anything like that, we just want to know what happened to him and why.
“We just don’t want this happening to another poor person. Hopefully they can take corrective action and it won’t happen to anyone else.
“Up until this happened my Uncle John was in good health, physically and mentally. We want to get him back to his sheltered housing as quick as we can as he thinks he’s not going to come back out of there now.”
Judith Park, director of acute services at NHS Lanarkshire, said: “We are sorry that the family have concerns. They have been in touch with our patient affairs team and we will respond to the family directly.”
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