A health campaigner who helped save her local A&E ward has spoken out after a "terrifying" 10-hour ordeal for treatment at the same hospital.
Councillor Sophia Coyle said her experience at Monklands Hospital, after complaining of chest pain, was so bad she would not go back if she fell ill again.
The mum-of-three also demanded the SNP -led Government get a grip on the soaring waiting times crisis. "You can’t just sit back and put blinkers on and say there’s a crisis," she told the Record.
"The health service is a shambles just now, but through no fault of the staff.”
Coyle, 46, was a long-standing SNP councillor in Airdrie who quit the party this year to sit as an independent on North Lanarkshire Council.
One of her first campaigns in politics was protecting the accident and emergency service at Monklands, but she has now sounded the alarm about the state of the facility she helped stop from being downgraded.
A diabetic and asthmatic, Coyle said she contacted the out-of-hours service earlier this month over tightness in her chest and breathlessness. She said it took around an hour to speak to an NHS professional, who said she should go to Monklands A&E.
Coyle said Monklands was “absolutely full” and claimed patients who had been referred by GPs were waiting for up to sixteen hours. She said: “I was trying not to panic in a waiting room full of people. I felt as if it was getting worse.
“You’re seeing people flooding through the doors and you’re obviously worrying about whether it will be too late without you getting through the doors to see a doctor. You see patients coming in from Wishaw because Wishaw is full. And then obviously we had transfers coming in from Forth Valley. If it’s a nebulizer you need, for asthma, you need to get started on medication pretty quickly.”
She also said wearing a face mask at a time when she was struggling for breath was “uncomfortable” and “terrifying”. Coyle said she arrived at the hospital at around 7pm in the evening and only got seen around 10 hours later.
She said of the SNP’s handling of the health service: “It’s a wake up call. They really need to speak to the staff on the ground to see what the problem is. They need to pay staff better.
“Especially when people are leaving and going to agencies and they are getting more money. Why are there 16-hours plus waiting times? It’s not sustainable at all."
Coyle said she would stay at home if the same symptoms re-appeared. She said: “I’ll be honest with you, I will put it off until I really have to go because I can’t sit down for that length of time. I would put it off until the very end.”
The Scottish Government has a target of dealing with 95 per cent of patients within four hours, but the NHS service is nowhere near complying. Public Health Scotland data revealed only 65.3 per cent of emergency department attendees were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in the week up to October 16.
Yousaf, branded the “worst” Health Secretary of the devolution era by Labour, said at the weekend that it could take at least five years for the NHS to recover.
Judith Park, NHS Lanarkshire director of acute services, said: “Due to patient confidentiality, we cannot discuss individual cases. NHS Lanarkshire aims to provide the best possible treatment and care for its patients. We have a feedback and complaints process and we would always encourage anyone to contact us in this way if they wish to raise any concerns.
“All three of our hospitals are currently operating well above normal capacity which is having a significant impact on service provision and waiting times at our emergency departments.
“Across our system, pressures have continued to increase due to such factors as Covid-19 infections, rising attendances and workforce availability. All of this has contributed to a very understandable sense of frustration and distress for service users, carers and their families, as well as for staff across our teams and services.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are aware of the current pressures facing NHS Lanarkshire and these are due to a number of factors including: rising Covid infections, higher A&E attendances, delayed discharge and staffing issues, all of which add to the extreme pressure on the emergency department.
“Our £50 million Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative looks to drive down A&E waits by offering alternatives to hospital, such as Hospital at Home; directing people to more appropriate urgent care settings and scheduling urgent appointments to avoid long waits.
“A key focus of the our winter plan is on social care and actions to encourage integration authorities to speed up discharges from hospital.”
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