Heartbreaking footage tonight reveals the brutal reality inside Britain’s crippled NHS.
Channel 4’s glamorous Dispatches documentary, filmed by an undercover paramedic during the busiest days of winter, captures a series of devastating incidents which staff warn have become commonplace.
One of the most moving clips in the hour-long program shows the final moments of a man who died of a heart attack after being delayed to the right place.
Daniel Waterhouse, the 30-year-old 999 worker who bravely sacrificed his career to expose the harrowing realities of life in the NHS, described it as the “hardest part” of his filming.
Other gruesome footage includes that of a 90-year-old woman lying on the ground outside in freezing temperatures for four hours, and a teenage girl with a dislocated kneecap being rushed to the emergency room on a picnic table due to ambulance delays.
Channel 4’s glamorous Dispatches documentary, filmed by an undercover paramedic during the busiest days of winter, captures a series of devastating incidents which staff warn have become commonplace
The footage shows undercover paramedic Daniel Waterhouse taking a man to Rhesus Station, where the most seriously ill or injured patients are usually treated, only to find there is no room.
Mr Waterhouse, who was on his last shift after resigning last week, hopes his statement “will help bring about change” and that “something will be done”.
In January Mr. Waterhouse received a call about a person who had been vomiting and had chest pains for 18 hours.
The man had two stents, metal or plastic tubes, inserted before Christmas to keep a passageway open, but he has never had a heart attack.
Mr Waterhouse said they knew he would be sent to the specialist heart unit at Harefield Hospital in Hillingdon, London.
After being disconnected many times by the operator, they were finally told to text heart rate to a cardiologist.
Mr. Waterhouse (pictured above) was on his last shift after being sacked last week and hopes his evidence, which will be broadcast on Channel 4 Dispatches on Thursday night, “will help bring about change”.
They received no reply to the text and instead took the patient to Watford General Hospital.
There, due to the man’s serious condition, they expected that paramedics would be waiting for their arrival, but this was not the case.
Two hours later Mr. Waterhouse was given another assignment – to transport the same man to Harefield, as a cardiologist finally read the man’s EKG readings and concluded that he had had a heart attack.
“He could have gone to where he needed to be three hours earlier, but he didn’t because of the communication breakdown,” Mr. Waterhouse said.
On arrival at Harefield the cardiologist told Mr Waterhouse: “The scan they took at Watford shows that the arteries they put stents in a few months ago were completely blocked. Unfortunately the heart function is not on the moment very well.’
Dye was injected into the man’s blood, showing that much of the heart muscle had died and “there was no way out”.
The man, whose face was blurred to protect his identity – like all secretly registered patients – died shortly afterwards and Harefield does not think delays affected the outcome.
The documentary shows a 90-year-old woman who fell on a cold December day.
It was classified as a Category 2 call and required an average response time of 18 minutes. But Mr. Waterhouse’s hard-working 999 team did not arrive for four hours.
When paramedics arrive, they see a comment in the snow before anyone sees the elderly woman on the ground and says, “Oh my god.” Jesus.’
Mr Waterhouse said: “On the street in front of the house was the 90-year-old lady who had her Careline tag activated because she had fallen.
“It’s two degrees outside, it was freezing outside. With this temperature she was already out around 01:00 and it was almost 04:30 when we got to her.
“She was extremely hypothermic, below 34 degrees. Life cannot be sustained for long at this temperature.’
Mr Waterhouse, from Finchley, north London, who qualified as an Emergency Technician in 2021, maps conditions in Watford and Barnet emergency rooms
Raw footage taken by Daniel Waterhouse, a 30-year-old paramedic, during the darkest days of the NHS’s worst winter shows corridors full of patients
After spending so long outside in those temperatures, the paramedic said he was shocked the woman was “not dead yet”.
She spent two weeks in the hospital before being released into a nursing home.
In November, footage showed a young girl being taken to hospital by her parents on a picnic table after dislocating her kneecap. They claimed they had no choice as they had to wait 20 hours for an ambulance.
Mr Waterhouse said: “A family came in who took their daughter to the emergency room themselves after giving up waiting for an ambulance.
“She took a dance class and her kneecap popped out. It was just to the left of where it should have been.”
The girl can be seen in the clips saying she is getting cold while lying under a foil blanket.
Because of long waits in the ambulance, her parents found “some picnic dining table” and put her on it like “a makeshift stretcher.”
The paramedics count from three before replacing her kneecap, prompting a piercing scream from the young girl, who appears to be in extreme pain and fear.
Waterhouse said: “Being taken to hospital on a picnic table because there were no ambulances available for 20 hours is a terrifying experience for this young girl. It’s just something you wouldn’t expect in a developed country.’
Another shocking case detailed in the documentary was Hannah Houghton, a 36-year-old mother of four with cystic fibrosis who died after waiting 11 hours for an ambulance.
However, her ordeal was not recorded by Mr Waterhouse but took place in Birmingham.
It turned out she was suffering from flu, pneumonia and blood poisoning, and was on antibiotics at the hospital.
Her heartbroken husband told Dispatches: “I held her hand and said you will be okay. I told her I love her, she said the same.
“I don’t think it was even half a minute before she went into cardiac arrest.
“I think it could have been different if the ambulance had come earlier and the antibiotics had been given earlier.”
The documentary also heard from an elderly Essex man who died after the transfer was delayed, taking eight hours to undergo surgery after suffering a stroke.
Dr Sanjeev Nayak, a consultant interventional neuroradiologist who helped develop the UK’s first 24/7 stroke service, said he thought the man “would have had a good outcome, might have woken up from hospital”. if the treatment would have been completed earlier.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine projects an additional 23,000 deaths in 2022 due to long waits for emergency services.
Source link
Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
