A woman has described her family’s anger after her 89-year-old mother died at home following a six-hour wait for an ambulance.
athleen Neagle died on July 8 2021 in Dundonald after suffering illness for several days prior to her death.
Speaking to BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster programme, her daughter Meta Patterson explained the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) confirmed ambulances which had been dispatched to take her mother to hospital were twice diverted to other priority calls.
The woman said staff from NIAS have since apologised to her family, as she blames “the system” for failing her and explained it “angers her to the core”.
Ms Patterson said the family had initially taken Ms Neagle to the Ulster Hospital last year after she began suffering illness, with doctors at the time diagnosing her with gastroenteritis.
Explaining her mother then continued to deteriorate over the next day, Ms Patterson phoned her GP who arranged an ambulance to be sent for her mum.
“That phone call we made at 2 o clock. I got a phone call back from the [ambulance] paramedic at quarter to 4 to ask how she was feeling,” Ms Patterson said.
“I then managed to tell them she had taken a rash over her body. He asked me to do a glass test with her, which showed the rash didn’t go away. His words were: ‘We need to prioritise her’. We didn’t receive [an ambulance] until 10pm that night.
“She was already dead.”
Ms Patterson described her mother as a “great woman”
“She went to her church everyday her age didn’t stop her doing things she always wanted to do,” she said.
“On the Sunday morning before she died, she was walking to church. She was quite an active lady, loved to party. She had bits of pain in her knees but other than that she was a great loving funny woman.”
The initial call for an ambulance for Ms Neagle was considered a category three call and was upgraded to a category two later that evening – both are treated less urgently than category one.
“To be honest when this was all happening and we were waiting for the ambulance, although she was talking, she wasn’t eating much,” Ms Patterson added.
“Not one second we didn’t think my mum was going to pass. We assumed the ambulance would come, my mum would get better and we would get her back maybe the next day.
“She was just lying there and saying she didn’t feel well. Going in and out of sleep. Within minutes my brothers were performing CPR, on the phone to the ambulance service they were helping them through it.
“The ambulance driver had to come from Ballynahinch because there was no ambulance available around Belfast.
“I don’t blame the ambulance service, I blame the system. The system is not working in this country. I don’t blame the doctors, I don’t blame the ambulance drivers, they can only do so much.
“It angers me. Me, myself and my family, we want to get it out there to try and help other families. It angers me to the core that people are dying in this way.
“This will not change unless the government do something about it. It is so unfair, something needs to be done.
“Me and my family wouldn’t like that to happen to anyone else. You question yourself if you have done something wrong.”
Ms Neagle said her family wrote to both the Health Minister Robin Swann and NIAS.
A spokesperson for the minister confirmed to BBC NI the department received correspondence, and a reply was sent a number of days later.
In a statement to BBC NI, NIAS said: “Such delays are not the service the public expect and deserve, nor one that we seek to provide and we would apologise unreservedly for any such delay,” it said.
“We wish to express our sincere condolences to Mrs Neagle’s family on their loss. We have engaged directly with family members during the review of the circumstances which led to the delayed response.
“We would of course be happy to engage further if the family felt this would be helpful, however do not feel it appropriate to comment further.”