A Rutherglen pensioner with dementia was left waiting more than 19 hours for an ambulance despite suffering symptoms of a stroke.
Frail Joyce Meikle, 82, was unable to lift her leg and became unresponsive in her home after her health deteriorated through the night on Sunday, August 22.
Her daughter Kelli Meikle, who cares for Joyce, told our sister title, the Daily Record, that she called a GP who attended her home at 11.45am on August 23, and explained that an ambulance would have to be called to the house.
But the furious family were left waiting almost 20 hours for an ambulance, which eventually showed up at 10am the next day.
Joyce, who has vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s - as well as a form of Parkinson’s disease - had previously suffered a small stroke prompting fears her condition could be extremely serious.
The call for an ambulance was initially logged as non-emergency but the GP later upgraded the call to urgent.
Kelli sat with her mother through the night and explained how the family continued to call the ambulance service but were told crews were “exceptionally busy”.
She said: “We phoned back last night and were just told the ambulance crew were very busy, we kept calling and calling.
“They upgraded her and said it would possibly take two hours.”
However by 6am the following morning the family were still waiting and had been up through the night hoping an ambulance would arrive.
Kelli said: “At 6.10am I had to call again and they said they were exceptionally busy. At that point we had been waiting 17 hours.”
She added: “They asked us whether my mum could say ‘the early bird catches the worm’ but I told them she was unresponsive.
“They then asked if I could drive her to hospital, but if that was an option I would have done it in the first instance.
“I wouldn’t have been allowed inside A&E with her because of COVID, so she would have been left to wait alone.”
An ambulance crew arrived at 10am on Tuesday morning and Joyce was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow.
Kelli said: “We had to wait over 19-hours in total.
“I was with her and stayed with her through the night, we didn’t know what was wrong.”
She added: “I’m concerned that the public don’t realise just how long people are being left waiting.”
Kelli’s son Jay, 30, who was also waiting with his gran for the ambulance, said: “They do not tell you anything.
“They upgraded the call twice but we were still waiting.
“It was possibly a mini stroke, she couldn’t raise her left leg and so, with those conditions, we obviously thought an ambulance would be en route.”
A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesperson said they were sorry for the delay in responding to the calls and said it was a result of “exceptionally high and sustained demand” at the time of the call.
They said: “We would like to sincerely apologise for the delay in responding to this patient.
“While we are limited in what we can say due to patient confidentiality, we can confirm the non-emergency request from the patient’s GP came in during a period of exceptionally high and sustained demand.
“A range of factors such as lengthy hospital patient handovers, COVID restrictions easing and staff isolating are resulting in an increase in delays to ambulances reaching non-emergency patients.
“Our staff are working tirelessly during this really challenging time to attend to patients as quickly as possible but like all other health boards in Scotland and services across the UK, we are experiencing significant demand for our services.
“Investment in new ambulance staff, new ambulances and the latest equipment to support communities in the West of Scotland continues at pace.”