Patients die while waiting in the corridors, while others receive medical care in the toilets or in the emergency room parking lots, the largest nurses’ union complains in its report.
“Patients lose their dignity and their lives are put at risk,” said Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), warning that the evidence gathered should sound the alarm.
“Hallway” or “chairside” medical care is becoming the norm in the UK, he said, calling into question the hospital system’s ability to cope with winter.
Responsibilities to previous governments
The report is based on testimonies from 5,000 nurses. Some even refer to patients having heart attacks or women miscarrying in the corridors.
Other patients receive medical care in toilets or bathrooms, in changing rooms or in parking lots, putting their lives at risk without access to cardiographs, oxygen machines or resuscitation equipment.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told parliament yesterday that the situation was unacceptable, blaming “14 failed years” of the NHS under previous Conservative governments.
“I can’t promise and I won’t promise that there won’t be patients receiving care in the corridors next year because it will take time to repair the damage,” he said.
“Patients are dying in hospital beds and in chairs in corridors and waiting rooms. All the fundamental principles of medical care have collapsed – we offer nothing better than a developing country,” said one nurse, whose testimony is included in the RCN report.
The flu is sweeping
Last week was the busiest for the UK health system due to the flu and cold wave sweeping the country, according to NHS Emergency Director Julian Redhead.
In England, hospital beds were 96% full and around twenty hospitals reported “serious incidents” to Emergency Departments.
NHS England Chief Nursing Officer Duncan Burton spoke of a winter “one of the toughest the NHS has ever seen”.
Source: APE-MPE, AFP
