Patient’s wife hits out at cutbacks
A BISHOP Auckland woman fears the closure of Bishop Auckland Accident and Emergency department has caused hospital staff at Darlington to become demoralised after her husband required treatment.
Christine Atkinson said her husband Brian was neglected by staff at the Memorial Hospital who no longer seemed to care about patients as she believes they couldn’t cope with the deluge of extra cases.
Brian, 71, was treated at Sunderland five weeks ago for a tumour on his bladder. Two weeks ago, he woke up at 4.15am to urinate and found he had haemorrhaged and could only pass blood. Christine rang the GP’s surgery number and spoke to a general medical line. An ambulance was then called to take him to Darlington.
Christine said: “At Darlington there were only two other patients in the emergency ward yet the doctors spent all their time looking at a scan of a foot rather than helping my husband.
“He was in agony, eventually someone took him to the toilet but they left him there. After an hour they agreed to transfer him to Sunderland but they said they couldn’t give him a catheter, which would have relieved a lot of the pressure, because they had run out.
“Once we got to Sunderland he recovered very well. It was just the way he was treated at Darlington was so shocking. It felt like the staff don’t care.
“I think they have had to deal with so many extra patients since Bishop A&E closed that they have become completely demoralised which is why Brian was neglected.
“The NHS Trust says
staff are handling everything well but I don’t think they
are judging by our experience.”
Brian, an electrician, said: “All I needed was some relief to get the blockage away. We only live a short walk from Bishop Auckland and had it happened during the day I could probably have been driven there by a friend. But because it was an emergency call-out they had to take me all the way to Darlington.”
A spokesperson for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said: “Changes to the Trust’s services to deliver acute care from two sites were made to ensure that patients could access all the right specialist services they needed at the right time from each of the sites.
“The changes also created the opportunity for patients who don’t need acute care to transfer to Bishop Auckland Hospital for rehabilitation and recovery.
“In line with the changes, the Trust has created extra capacity at Darlington Memorial Hospital with extra medical beds, stroke beds and extra beds in medical admissions as well as additional staff and there are also plans to increase capacity at University Hospital of North Durham.
“As would be expected the two sites do experience busy periods but the Trust is proud that its staff are continually achieving the four-hour national wait standard.”