You will have heard many people referring to the NHS as 'broken', which it is, but what many people don't realise is that it's been broken for many years!
8 Years ago I was living in Llandovery in Carmarthenshire. I had a couple of accidents whilst I was there (!!!);
The first time I slipped on the wooden decking (lethal stuff!), hit my head on a concrete pillar and was out of it, only for a minute or so, but they always tell you to get it checked out if you lose consciousness for even that long. No-one turned up, despite being promised that an ambulance was on its way a couple of times, they kept getting diverted to more urgent incidents, and in the end we just gave up!
The second time was when I tripped over something in the garage (where the freezer was kept) and went sprawling (face first) onto the concrete floor, breaking my shoulder. That is the most pain I have ever been in! A First Responder attended pretty quickly, but he was with me for hours. He gave me morphine and then had to stay to monitor me, especially as I'm on a lot of medication and have underlying conditions that could have caused a problem. Control kept promising him an ambulance but again they kept getting diverted to more urgent priorities. It seemed to me ridiculous that such a highly trained member of the team was sat there with me, unable to go to another call. They couldn't even get a taxi to me. We gave up in the end, but had to cancel the ambulance and start the whole process again the next day! Eventually they sent a taxi, which would have cost at least £50. The taxi driver told me they were devoting more of their time to hospital calls than any other type of call, and it was the same with all the taxi firms.
Whilst in Llandovery I also had a minor stroke, but that's a long story and will require another post!
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