By Lesley Walsh
A DONAGHADEE woman has told of her anguish after her frail husband endured a 14-hour wait for an ambulance after he fell and broke his hip.
Harry McCandless was left on the floor of his home in agony and, when he did finally make it to the Ulster Hospital, he had to wait in an ambulance for another 10 hours before being admitted into A&E.
Marlene McCandless, who is blind and is cared for by Harry, said all she could do was sit beside the stricken man on the floor to keep him company as he bore the long wait for the emergency services.
She was kept company throughout by caring neighbour Cathy McAllister who she summoned for help.
The 79 year-old woman revealed her husband of 52 years had just been coming to terms with starting kidney dialysis treatment, which commenced only days before the incident.
Harry, who is 80 later this year and had been treated for cancer in recent years, has since undergone surgery to repair his broken hip.
Marlene revealed how the marathon wait for medical help began last Tuesday, January 6 after he got into difficulty at their Cloughey Road home.
“I was in the kitchen and he was in the bedroom at the back of the house and the next thing I heard was him falling.
“It’s not a big bedroom and where he fell, between the bed and chest of drawers he couldn’t move and that was him for the next 14 hours.
“All I could think of was to call Cathy across the road, as she’s a very helpful girl, but we couldn’t do anything for him but give him paracetamol,” she said.
“Harry had already rung the ambulance immediately but they couldn’t do anything for him to make him more comfortable so I just sat on the floor beside him and Cathy was there, staying with us throughout.
“The back bedroom is very small and where he fell down, at the side of the bed, there was no room for us to get around him so he was stuck in a tight spot,” she said.
The vulnerable pensioner continued that while she stayed at home awaiting news of Harry’s fortunes once he had been taken away by ambulance, it was another ten hours before his broken hip was confirmed by medical staff who examined him.
Since his admission, the couple have been keeping in touch by telephone, with travel to the hospital difficult due to Marlene’s visual impairment, though Harry has been comforted in hospital by the couple’s son and daughter in law who have been visiting from Newtownards.
“You hear of these things but you never think it’s going to happen to yourself,” said Marlene.
She said the worst part of their ordeal was ‘the fact that we couldn’t do anything more for him to make him more comfortable’, stating the paracetamol wasn’t enough to lessen his pain.
“All I could do was just sit there with him on the floor beside him and Cathy kept coming in to see what she could do for us.” The elderly grandparents had just been getting used to the idea of Harry’s dialysis treatment which had only begun a few days before his fall.
“He’d only started the dialysis and had treatment on the Monday and the Tuesday and was supposed to go in for more on the Wednesday but then this happened,” Marlene lamented.
“He ended up waiting outside the hospital in an ambulance.” Up to recently, Marlene said Harry had ‘always been mobile and up and about’ but on top of the serious injury from his fall, he currently was suffering a number of health issues.
The NI Ambulance Service apologised to the McCandlesses and said they had been ‘experiencing exceptional system pressure affecting their ability to respond to emergency calls’.
They said they had ‘reduced ambulance availability’ due to ‘ambulance handover delay’ which they had not seen ‘at this level of intensity previously’.
The South Eastern Health Trust said ’regrettably demand for care in our hospitals continues to outstrip capacity’. It appealed for people to leave hospital when they are medically fit to alleviate pressures on the emergency department and stressed ‘patient safety is our priority’.
