Ambulance times: Mum told to wait hours after child’s seizureon October 20, 2022 at 11:10 am

A mother has spoken of her horror after being told she would have to wait hours for an ambulance after her son became “lifeless” on the way to A&E.

Georgia Faith Johnson called 999 when Tobias, aged two, had a seizure at their Cardiff home, but was told it was an eight-hour wait.

As she tried to get to A&E he went “floppy”, but was told to monitor him at the side of the road.

The Welsh Ambulance Service said it was under extreme pressure.

It comes as new figures show response times for the most serious calls – where someone’s life is at immediate risk- have fallen to a joint all-time record low as the service deals with a spike in 999 calls.

“It was super scary,” she said. “It just petrifies to say the least that my lifeless two-year-old wasn’t enough of an emergency to get the help of the ambulances. The cuts to the NHS are just so scary”.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, Georgia said she called 999 when Tobias’ eyes rolled to the back of his head and the colour drained from his face at their Cardiff home on Monday evening.

She said the 999 call handler told her to “get to the hospital immediately, but there are no ambulances available” and she would have to wait hours.

Georgia bundled her son in the car and tried to get him to A&E, but within minutes they were stuck in traffic.

“As I turned to look at my son, unfortunately he was pretty lifeless,” she said.

“He was floppy and the colour was drained from his lips and all of his face.”

She called 999 and asked for an ambulance again, and was told she needed to track her son’s breathing, which was extremely fast.

She said she was told: “You need to get him out of the car, lay him flat and ask somebody to get a defibrillator in case he goes into cardiac arrest.

“At this point I was just crying and begging: please just send an ambulance to which she was responding it would still be a five-hour wait at least.”

A few people pulled over and helped her, trying to explain to the call handler that they had no way of getting hold of a defibrillator.

After an hour, an ambulance in the traffic spotted them and blue-lighted them straight to hospital.

“They were amazing. They jumped straight into action,” she said.

Tobias was sedated for 19 hours to stop the seizure.

She said: “To think that what happened to my son and I is looking at becoming the norm in Wales is just incredibly sad and worrying.

“Not just for people like us but for the staff of the NHS too who are working under immense pressure as it is.”

A row in the Senedd went viral this week between First Minister Mark Drakeford and Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies when the latter attacked the first minister over ambulance waiting times.

The first minister hit back, saying it was partly the Conservatives’ fault for making a mess of the UK’s budget and reputation.

Georgia said she was “reassured” by how strongly Mr Drakeford feels about the matter of ambulance waiting times, and that she could relate to his frustration.

She said she did not want to pin the blame on anyone specifically, but stressed the ambulance service and the people of Wales deserve a lot better from the Welsh government.

Figures show that in September 50% of responses to red calls, where a life is at immediate risk, arrived within eight minutes – well below the target of 65%.

The service received 18.1% fewer calls on average per day than the same month last year, with 2,300 calls per day made to the NHS 111 service.

However, the ambulance service saw a rise in the most urgent, life threatening calls in September, at just over 10%.

A Welsh government spokesperson said progress continued to be made on the longest waits.

“Urgent and emergency care staff remain under intense pressure, and we are working with health and social care service leaders to support improvements,” the spokesperson said.

“We acknowledge ambulance performance is not where we, NHS Wales or the public expect it to be and we are driving a whole system response to support improvement.

“We expect health boards to take ownership and immediately reduce ambulance patient handover delays while working with social care services to improve timeliness of patient transfers home from hospital.”

The Welsh Ambulance Service said it was very sorry about the distressing experience Georgia went through, adding it was under extreme pressure.

A spokesperson said protracted hospital handover delays were seriously affecting their ability to reach patients quickly.