(p. A1) WREXHAM, Wales — Rachel Parry and Wayne Jones, two paramedics with the Wrexham Ambulance Service, pulled up to a hospital in northern Wales with a patient just after 10 a.m. one early December [2022] morning.
That’s when their wait began.
It would be 4:30 p.m. before their patient, a 47-year-old woman with agonizing back pain and numbness in both of her legs, would be handed over to the emergency room of Wrexham Maelor Hospital. It was more than 12 hours since she had first called 999, the British equivalent of 911.
The delays have grown so bad — and so common — the two paramedics said, that their first interaction with patients is no longer an introduction.
“We start with an apology now,” Ms. Parry said. “Every job is, like, they open the front door, ‘Hi, we are so sorry we are late.’ That has become the norm.”
The sight of ambulances lined up for hours outside hospitals has become distressingly familiar in Wales, which last month recorded its worst wait times ever for life-threatening emergency calls. But the problem is far from isolated. Ambulances services in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are also experiencing record-high waits.
It’s a near-crisis situation that experts say signals a breakdown of the compact between Britons and their revered National Health Service: that the government will provide responsible, efficient health care services, mostly free, across all income levels.
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(p. A7) While Ms. Parry and Mr. Jones waited at the hospital with their second patient, there were at least 21 calls in their response area that they and other paramedics also stuck at the hospital could not be deployed to. During their 12-hour shift, they picked up only three patients.
“It’s frustrating,” Mr. Jones said. “These people are out in the community and they are desperate.”
Good Samaritans sometimes step in and drive people in distress to the hospitals themselves. While Ms. Parry and Mr. Jones were waiting with their patients, two cars pulled into the ambulance drop-off point with patients. In both cases — one in which an elderly woman fell and broke her wrists and another in which a woman collapsed in a supermarket — the driver had called the emergency services only to be told it would be hours before an ambulance could come.
“Bystanders are doing more jobs than me today,” Ms. Parry said in frustration, after helping both arrivals into the hospital.
. . .
Families also find the long waits excruciating as they watch their loved ones suffer. Frank Taylor waited three hours with his wife Ann Taylor, 79, for an ambulance, saying it was hard for him to see her in so much pain.
When the paramedics arrived, he was relieved to see them swiftly hook her up to oxygen before gently carrying her, wrapped in a blue knit blanket, down the stairs to the ambulance.
But when they reached the hospital, it was another two-hour wait before Ms. Taylor was finally taken inside.
Around 8:30 p.m., Ms. Taylor was transferred from the emergency room to the intensive care unit, the final stop after a long day of uncertainty.
Last year, Ms. Taylor was moved to a nursing home after her health declined — she has end-stage lung disease — and Mr. Taylor visits her daily. It was there that the ambulance picked her up.
. . .
While he praised the care of the paramedics, Mr. Taylor said the wait time was frustrating. He worried about his wife’s dignity during this final stage of her life.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story was updated Dec. 22, 2022 [sic], and has the title “One Day With an Ambulance in Britain: Long Waits, Rising Frustration.”)