Elizabeth Hirst witnessed patients treated in A&E corridors
A gran is demanding face-to-face talks with the health secretary – after seeing patients queuing in A&E corridors. Elizabeth Hirst wants to get 100,000 signatures on a petition in a one-woman crusade to save the NHS.
It follows a five-day stay in the Royal Stoke University Hospital which started with her stuck outside A&E in an ambulance. The 65-year-old has scoliosis, osteoporosis and severe asthma and has been in and out of hospitals since she was a teenager.
Elizabeth, from Burslem, said: “When I was younger, it was different. You could tell who all the staff were by their uniforms. There weren’t any waiting times and there were never any patients stuck waiting outside the hospital in ambulances.
“But now it’s different. You feel sad when you go in hospital and you see everything. There are people stuck waiting in the corridors and all the medical staff are running around looking after people like headless chickens.
“I was left outside in the ambulance. You can’t fault the people working at the NHS though. Because the care that you get is very good. They’re absolutely amazing. They’re run off their feet looking after people. They’re put under so much stress because they haven’t got the time to do anything. I feel so sorry for them. It’s so sad. You just open your eyes and look all around and you want to do something to help.”
She added: “I am creating a petition and I’m going to get 100,000 signatures. That’s how many you need to get it in before Parliament. I want to be a voice that can speak up for everybody and our NHS. I want to actually go down and speak to the health secretary face-to-face.
“I don’t know who or what is to blame. But I know the government will have to answer as to why everything is happening. Whenever anyone has to go in hospital, we haven’t got the answers. They have. And they’re the ones that need to help and get the NHS back to how it should be.”
Elizabeth believes action must be taken sooner rather than later – and says she fears what will happen if nothing is done soon.
She added: “It’s just going to keep getting even worse until they’ll turn around and tell us there’s not going to be an NHS anymore. It does really make me worry. Because there are that many people who rely on it. How is anyone going to be able to afford private medical care? We need our hospitals.”
The government has defended its NHS record since coming to power.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This government inherited a broken NHS with unacceptable A&E waiting times and an overworked, demoralised workforce. That’s why we have invested an extra £26 billion to reform the health service and have given all NHS workers, including doctors and nurses, real terms pay rises for the second year in a row.
“Through our Plan for Change we are also shifting services from hospital to community to ease pressure on A&E departments, on top of recruiting an extra 1,000 GPs to reach patients earlier and move from treatment to prevention. It will be a long road to fix our NHS, but we are doing the work to get us there.”
Sign up for the latest breaking news and top stories from StokeonTrentLive on WhatsApp