Three hours for a 12-minute journey? This is madnesseditorial@hamhigh.co.uk
13 September 2007
Tan Parsons
AN ELDERLY dialysis patient is demanding compensation from the Royal Free Hospital for taking three hours to drive him to his home just 12 minutes away.
Morris Howard, 85, receives life-saving dialysis at the Hampstead hospital three times a week.
But the ambulance takes up to three hours to get Mr Howard the hospital to his home in Regent's Park Road in Finchley because it first drops other patients off in places such as Edmonton.
He said: "After treatment you suffer - you feel sick and dizzy for a day and a half.
"Having to wait all that time to get home when I live so near made me very angry and the anger made me even more ill - it's very dangerous.
"The people who run the ambulance service couldn't care a tinker's cuss about people who are sick and elderly."
Mr Howard has been receiving dialysis treatment since his kidneys were removed two months ago.
He gets up at 5.30am because he never knows when the ambulance will arrive to take him to the hospital.
The former market worker has become so frustrated that he has opted to use taxis rather than the hospital's own transport, which is provided by private contractor National Ambulance Service.
He is demanding to be reimbursed by the hospital for the cost of his trips, which he estimates could cost £1,000 per year.
He added: "I'm only human, but I'm beginning to hate myself for getting so angry with the people at the ambulance service.
"All it would take to sort the service out is three or four organisers who know what they are doing."
Malcolm Alexander, chairman of the Patients' Forum for the London Ambulance Service, has called for an investigation into the standard of transport services at the Royal Free.
He said: "The Royal Free Hospital must give assurances of an efficient, safe, patient-friendly and timely service for all patients immediately.
"There is no regulatory body for patient transport services and we will urgently raise this matter with the Healthcare Commission and the Secretary of State for Health. The privatisation of NHS services is destroying health care services - particularly for vulnerable elderly people like this patient."
The hospital's assistant director of facilities Philip Holmes said he is trying to arrange a meeting with Mr Howard.
He said: "Mr Howard has not made any formal complaint yet and until I have spoken to him I cannot give a comment about his case.
"We need to establish whether this was a case of a situation going wrong or a case of his expectations being different to what happens."
He added: "It is very much the norm for non-emergency services to be provided by private contractors and there are many exemplars of excellent standards of service."
tan.parsons@hamhigh.co.uk
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