“THEY LET ME DOWN�
There was not much festive cheer for one lady this Christmas who spent the time in hospital nursing her sick father. That would have been bad enough if it had not been for what she feels is a catalogue of errors that led to her father being refused a doctor's appointment, being ignored by the emergency services and being sent home home from hospital before recovering fully.
“His own doctor let me down, 112 let me down and Torrevieja Hospital let me down,” says Abi who has told her story to the Leader.
It was just before Christmas that Abi's father started to become ill. His legs were very swollen and he was struggling to walk. He lives with his daughter who immediately called his doctor's surgery in Algorfa. “I tried for 5 days to get him an appointment but they just kept saying the computer's were down. I had an appointment myself anyway so I took Dad with me in the hope they would see him.
They did but didn't even check him over saying to just give him some energy drinks and see his own doctor.” However that proved a challenge with the computer's still being down so Abi went back to the surgery in person demanding to see someone and was told to go back at 2pm, “We saw Dad's doctor who was furious as we did not have an appointment. I'm showing him his legs and was told to make an appointment for a blood test so I got him home and settled again and of course could not make the appointment!” explains an exasperated Abi who runs El Paso restaurant in urbanisation La Marina.
This was on Wednesday 21st December and two days later his condition had deteriorated even further. The 72-year old was losing his speech, could not walk and had developed severe diarrhoea “I thought this was crazy and just rang 112 straight away for an ambulance. They asked what was wrong and if he was conscious and when I said yes they said I needed to take him to the doctors!” Unable to get help from the people who should be giving it Abi admits she just broke down in tears at the thought of her spending another 5 days trying to get him to the doctors. Still on the phone to 112 the police arrived at her door, as is standard practice when an emergency call is made. Praying the officer could help she says even he was getting frustrated at the lack of response and called the local surgery in Benijofar who have an ambulance in service.
Within minutes the ambulance arrived and transported Abi and her sick father to the practice in Benijofar. He was seen immediately, “The doctor said straight away 'this man needs to be in hospital' and asked why he was not in hospital already.” They arranged transportation and the pair were taken to Torrevieja Hospital. “Initially they were brilliant there and detected quite a lot of problems including E.coli and low potassium and sodium levels and he needed a blood transfusion so he was a very sick man.”
He remained in hospital throughout Christmas week and was released on Friday 30th December much to the shock of his worried daughter who says, “he was still having diarrhoea 4 or 5 times a day and was still unable to walk but they just said they wanted to see him as an outpatient in three weeks time so we took him home but he soon got worse again.”
On Friday 6th January she managed to get him in to the car and took him straight to the A&E department at the Vega Baja. “He still had the E.coli infection and diarrhoea and they admitted him straight away and the nurses were quite shocked and disgusted really that he had been released from Torrevieja in that state.”
The 72-year old who is normally sprightly and full of life and appearing much younger than his years has since had a brain scan and endoscopy and is gradually on the mend but the tale has left a bitter taste in Abi's mouth who warns all reader's to go with their gut instinct and to not take no as an answer when wanting to see a doctor. “I'm very upset and mad at what happened, he could have died if he had been left a few more days and I can't believe the ambulance would not come out, they said they had to be called by a doctor! If I could have seen the doctor I wouldn't have called!”
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