Did NHS Cutbacks cause the death of Sonia Powell?
Seventy-three year-old lady, Sonia Powell was taken to Morriston Hospital’s Accident & Emergency Unit in Swansea, South Wales, on Wednesday afternoon by emergency ambulance after a suspected heart attack.
However, on arrival at the hospital Mrs Powell was kept in the ambulance because there weren’t any beds available in A&E.
Mrs Powell had been transferred from Neath Port Talbot Hospital to Morriston but doctors had questioned why since there was little more that could be done at Morriston.
The NHS A&Es and ambulance service have been a breaking point and many question whether this is linked to government cuts or is due to the rise of patients visiting emergency departments – part of the much debated A&E crisis.
Patient’s who could have seen there GP are using A&E because it can take weeks to get an appointment. Furthermore.
“Escalation plans have been activated and staff across the hospital are working closely with colleagues from WAST (Welsh Ambulance Service Trust) to keep delays to a minimum,” the trust stated, but this is becoming a regular issue across the country not just in Wales.
A recent article about LAS stated that the region is being regularly place on “Purple Status”, previously reserved for major incidents or extreme surges in calls, where off duty staff are alerted and asked to come in for over time to deal with a high number of incidents.
Surely the government needs to take urgent actions to ensure that the service can deal with the life threatening emergencies which occur on a daily basis.
