A 92-year-old woman wished she could die while waiting 33 hours for treatment in a hospital corridor, according to her grandson.
Graeme Smith revealed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain how it was “terrifying” when his grandmother, Vera Murphy, fell ill, especially amid the current health crisis emerging in the NHS.
Smith told broadcasters that when he found out his grandmother needed hospital treatment, he found himself thinking: “Is there any way we can avoid this?”
Speaking on Thursday morning, he added: “We shouldn’t be feeling like that about places we’re going to get better, should we?”
He also recalled how Murphy said on the trolley “I wish I could die” while waiting to be seen for almost a day and a half.
Smith said his father “overheard” the same thing being said by other waiting patients in the corridors too. He added: “There were like dozens of elderly, sick people being held in the same condition.
“It’s not just about my nan, there were plenty of other people, and numerous old people were saying the same thing.
“The fact that people feel like there’s no other option but that, it’s really heartbreaking.”
The NHS is currently facing an intense crisis, with waiting times escalating, and hospital staff striking over pay and working conditions.
An estimated 300 to 500 people a week are dying due to delays in emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle.
He told Times Radio that “we need to actually get a grip of this” earlier this week.
More than a dozen NHS trusts and ambulance services declared critical incidents over Christmas, with one in five ambulance patients in England waiting more than an hour to be handed over to A&E teams during the last week of December.
NHS trusts have a target of 95% of ambulance handovers to be completed within 30 minutes, and 100% within 60 minutes.
In November, 37,837 patients waited more than 12 hours in A&E for a decision to be admitted to a hospital department, according to figures from NHS England.