The family of an 82-year-old with two forms of cancer, who had a heart attack, say they are disgusted that he spent over 27 hours in an A&E waiting room where they couldn’t turn off the air-conditioning.
David Wilkinson’s family has raised an official complaint with Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital over his treatment after his admission with chest pains around 8pm on Saturday, August 16.
The retired brickie from Wygate Road, Spalding, had to wait in A&E until 11.30pm on Sunday, 90 minutes after he started to get chest pains for a second time.
A doctor had diagnosed he’d suffered a heart attack at 5.30am that morning.
Throughout the whole time, the family say the air conditioning in the department was stuck on due to it not working properly.
Nurses were handing out blankets to try and keep those waiting warm, but David’s niece Helen Wilson, from Norfolk, was asked to deliver warmer blankets for him.
“I was absolutely devastated to see the state he had been left in,” said Helen. “He was curled up in a chair with his hood up on his jumper with a blanket up to his chin trying to keep warm.
“At this point he said he was having pains and he looked very uncomfortable.”
David is one of the few people in the world to have a rare form of head tumour that requires regular surgery to relieve the pressure behind his eyes and nose.
Due to that, and prostate cancer (for which he had a course of radiotherapy last month), he is normally given regular doses of morphine to ease the pain.
He also has recently been diagnosed with vascular dementia.
The family said sandwiches were offered to patients after five hours.
David’s daughters Jane Wilkins and Suzanne Howlett took turns to accompany David through the hours swapping to also look after David’s wife of 59 years, 76-year-old Christine, who has recently had a hip operation.
“Seeing my dad the way he was in A&E was heart-breaking,” Jane said. “The way he was treated was disgusting.”
“We’re never going back to Pilgrim Hospital,” said Suzanne. “If anything happens again we’re going to Peterborough.”
Helen added: “Whilst we were in A&E we watched numerous things that shouldn’t have been happening.
“An elderly gentleman in a wheelchair in the middle of the room asked numerous times for them to empty his catheter bag, to the point he was getting upset.
“The nurse brought a urine bottle and was going to empty it there and then in the middle of the room until she was challenged.
“She then left the bottle on a tea trolley that had tea cups on it where it stayed and wasn’t removed.
“My uncle’s sick bowl remained on the seat where it was put and was still there when we left.”
A hospital spokesman said: “We are sorry to hear that Mr Wilkinson and his family do not feel their experience has met the high standards of care that we expect.
“We are discussing the issues raised directly with the family.”
