Letter: Care not like the adverts

Letter: I get so annoyed when the advert by the NHS for "Stroke - Act Fast" appears almost daily on my TV screen. My reasons for this are as follows:

On January 4, 2009, at about 9.30am my wife suffered a stroke. Recognising the symptoms, having had previous experience of people suffering strokes, I immediately phoned for an ambulance. They arrived within five minutes with a paramedic in attendance and confirmed my suspicions, and duly took her to the Princess Royal Hospital.

I followed on by car but due to home commitments it was 11.30am before I arrived only to find her lying on a trolley in a corridor being looked after by an ambulance attendant. It was at least another hour before she was finally moved into the A&E department where she was seen by a doctor.

Mid-afternoon she was sent for an X-ray and, although I had told staff that she was diabetic, they would not allow her anything to keep her sugar at the correct levels.

It was around midnight before they found her a bed and gave her any treatment, the consequence of which was that she suffered another stroke which was to prove, two days later, to be fatal.

Now it may be that if she had received treatment sooner the outcome would have been the same, but I will always think that things might have been different.

What is the point of acting fast if one is faced with these circumstances?

Because of this I feel that the NHS should stop wasting public money unless they are going to improve services, and the Princes Royal Hospital should take note of what the NHS is saying in these adverts.

W Brazier

Donnington