A 90-year-old woman was forced to wait 40 hours for an ambulance, only to be stuck in the vehicle outside of A&E for the night waiting for an available bed.
Steven Syms from St Austwell in Cornwall said the NHS system is “totally broken” as he explained his mother’s distressing ordeal waiting for emergency services following a fall.
Mr Syms said he called 999 for his mother Daphne on Sunday evening but paramedics did not arrive until Tuesday afternoon.
She then had to wait in an ambulance overnight outside of the hospital as there was a queue to enter the A&E department. She was later diagnosed with a suspected hip fracture and would need an operation.
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“We’re literally heartbroken to see a 90-year-old woman in such distress just sat there waiting and it’s the not knowing how ill she was or whether she had broken anything,” Mr Syms told BBC Radio Cornwall on Wednesday.
“She’s still in the ambulance now,” Mr Syms said to the presenter’s shock.
Mr Syms said it also took nine minutes for his 999 call to be answered and said his mother could have died if she were having a heart attack and had to wait that long.
Read More: Injured woman, 90, forced to wait 40 hours for ambulance then kept in vehicle overnight
