An elderly woman had to wait more than three hours for an ambulance after falling in a road while walking in a town centre.
The woman, who is in her 80s, fell in Barn Road, Carmarthen, shortly before 5.30pm on Thursday evening.
With the woman lying injured in the road, the emergency services were called to the scene, which was near the junction with John Street in the middle of town.
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Officers from Dyfed-Powys Police arrived a short time later after and closed off the road in both directions, warning motorists to find alternative routes.
However, the ambulance that was called arrived at the scene more than three hours after they received the initial call. This is despite the fact that the incident happened around 1.5 miles from Glangwili Hospital, the largest hospital in west Wales. An ambulance did eventually arrive three hours and seven minutes after being called.
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A spokesman for the Welsh Ambulance Service said: “We were called to the Barn Road area yesterday (Thursday) at 5.18pm to reports of a person having suffered a fall. We responded with one emergency ambulance and one patient was taken to Glangwili Hospital for further treatment.”
When pushed, the service confirmed that they arrived at the scene of the fall at 8.25pm.
The road was re-opened at around 8.50pm on Thursday, police confirmed, while the current condition of the injured woman is unknown.
The pressure on the Welsh NHS has soared in recent weeks, with the Welsh Ambulance Service admitting that the easing of Covid-19 restrictions has led to a hige increase in demand for services. You can read more about that here.
According to the Welsh Ambulance Service, 3,700 ambulance hours were lost due to patient handover at hospitals last week, while 13,000 emergency calls were made to the service, an increase of more than 400 a day compared to the same week last year.
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