Woman who was first baby born on NHS says state of services ‘breaks her heart’

A woman who was the first baby to be born on the NHS said it “breaks her heart” to see services run down.

Aneira Thomas claimed there was a delay in an ambulance arriving at her daughter’s house when she suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2015 because the closest ambulance station, near Swansea, was shut at night.

An ambulance came from Llanelli, about half an hour away, she said.

She told Unison’s annual health conference in Brighton: “My daughter had to wait for an ambulance because the nearest station had suffered cuts.

“It breaks my heart to see the rundown of services.”

Mrs Thomas (pictured), who was born at one minute past midnight on July 5, 1948, said her daughter Lindsey – who worked as a paramedic – was asked a series of questions by doctors after her treatment.

She was asked her name, what day it was- and if she knew who was the prime minister, replying: “Yes – he is the arsehole who froze my pay five years ago.”

Mrs Thomas said the Government’s programme of austerity in public services was causing hardship in the NHS.

She added: “The NHS is underfunded, staff are overworked and underpaid, services have been cut – and it is the Government that has caused it.”

Speaking later, Mrs Thomas said she was “angry” with the Government’s handling of the NHS, adding: “I feel it is taking us backwards to the lean times of the 1930s.

“The money is there but there is a feeling of ‘I’m allright Jack’. Lives are being lost from what they are doing.”

Mrs Thomas was born in a cottage hospital in Glanamman, Carmarthenshire and was named after Aneurin Bevan, the architect of the NHS.

She joked that her mother was told by nurses to stop pushing and hold on until midnight so her baby would be the first to be born under the NHS.

“My brother reckons they pushed me back in for a minute!” she said.

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2018, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Gareth Fuller / PA Wire.}