Trust Apologises To Heart Patient

A hospital has apologised to a heart patient who said he was woken at 3am and asked to leave his bed to make way for an emergency admission. Father-of-six Mohammed Khan said he was forced to lie on a trolley in a crowded patient waiting room for four hours before being moved to a chair.

Mr Khan, 58, had been admitted to Llandough hospital near Cardiff. Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust said it was under severe pressure and it was “working hard” to tackle the problem.

Mr Khan, who recently had a triple by-pass heart operation, was admitted to hospital on 27 February with chest pains and a bloody cough and fell asleep immediately. “Then at 0300 three male nurses came in and woke me up,” he told the South Wales Echo newspaper. They said ‘sorry, we have to put you in the waiting room because we need your bed for an emergency patient.’

“I didn’t say much but what I did say was ‘Listen I’m a patient as well, I haven’t come here for a holiday. I came here for treatment the same as other patients.’ They just said ‘We’re sorry’.

Mr Khan, who lives in Cathays, Cardiff, said up to five people aged between 60 and 70 years old were also in the patient waiting room. The former shop owner, who was discharged from hospital on 2 March added: “I had great faith in the NHS but unfortunately my trust has been destroyed.”

A spokeswoman for the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust said: “We are sorry Mr Khan had to wait in our medical assessment unit overnight and into the following day while we made every effort to find a ward bed for him. Unfortunately, this is a result of the severe pressure both of our major hospitals are currently experiencing and it is sometimes necessary to use temporary overnight accommodation before we can find space on a ward.

She added the main cause was the high levels of delays in the transfer of patients in the trust. “We currently have 208 beds unavailable for new admissions because they are being used by patients who no longer need them but cannot be moved until their ongoing care needs have been resolved. This is creating unacceptable delays and distress for new patients.”

She added the trust was holding talks with the local authority partners and the Welsh assembly government to find solutions to the situation.