Steve Barclay warns that elderly people who fall won’t be able to get an ambulance during the strikes later this month (Report, 7 December). Is he not aware that this is already the reality for many of the elderly who fall in their homes?
My 80-year-old father recently spent the entire night on the floor before being found in the morning by his neighbour. She immediately called 999 for an ambulance. We waited nine hours, before my dad insisted we cancel it. He was anxious about a long, cold wait in the back of an ambulance at night because he has a lung condition.
His GP visited him the following morning and requested an ambulance via the surgery. We waited more than seven hours and, when we were informed we would have to wait longer, cancelled that ambulance too. The paramedic we spoke to was profusely apologetic. I could hear the anguish in his voice as he told me that unfortunately Dad’s long wait for an ambulance was no longer the exception.
We had to take Dad to A&E ourselves, with great difficulty and anxiety over causing further injury to his back. My dad and I fully support industrial action by ambulance staff. We recognise that they are striking not simply over pay, but over the dire state of the ambulance service and the danger this poses to our elderly relatives.
Beverley Beckett
King’s Caple, Herefordshire
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