Two years of carefully protecting his diabetic wife from the dangers of the pandemic have left a British man feeling alone and deeply shaken by her death after waiting 16 hours for an ambulance, he told Anadolu Agency.
“I spent two years trying to protect her from COVID, followed it down to the last detail. I always took hand sanitizer with me. I kept checking on my wife just to keep her safe, but it was the ambulance service that killed her,” Matthew Simpson said as he recounted the events on the day that he lost his 54-year-old wife, Teresa, who died at Hull Royal Infirmary in November after a heart attack and lack of oxygen to the brain.
Simpson called the emergency hotline 999 at 3.00 p.m. but was told the ambulance call center would contact him later due to congestion.
The ambulance would only arrive at 7.45 a.m. the next day after he placed a second call to say his wife appeared “lifeless.”
“I had to wait 16 hours and 45 minutes and they came because I had to call them and tell them that she was dead,” said Simpson, asserting that had emergency services arrived sooner, his wife could have survived.
“I lost my wife,” he said, adding that he was trying to keep his wife conscious by talking and taking care of her and giving her drugs until the ambulance arrived. “I am very annoyed. My wife should never have lost her life like this.”
“The sad part is this September is our 25th wedding anniversary. I was planning something special. Now, instead of planning something special for our anniversary, I’m planning my wife’s funeral,” he added.
A large-scale investigation expected to last 12 months has been launched into Simpson’s death following a normal investigation carried out after the incident.
On why he did not take his wife in a taxi when it became apparent that the ambulance was not coming, Matthew underlined that his wife was 90% disabled. “I had to call my wife special taxis designed for disabled people, which are very difficult to find in the evenings. You have to book in advance.
“On the other hand, I didn’t even know what happened to my wife. I’m not a medical doctor. I just helped her. I was there, I was with her, I was keeping her safe. I couldn’t do things that would put her at risk, like taking her out in the cold.”
– Crisis in NHS
Simpson didn’t blame the ambulance drivers or the doctors, but rather “the person at the top of Yorkshire Ambulance who made these decisions about what emergency is classified as an emergency. They were the ones who killed my wife.”
“I think the crisis in the NHS (National Health Service) is very serious at the moment and I’m really angry with the ambulance service because it doesn’t just happen to me.
“You hear stories of ambulances with waiting times of four, six, 12, 18, 20 hours every day,” he said, adding that even when the ambulance arrives, it was not guaranteed that the patient would receive medical care immediately.
“You can wait outside for 10 hours. I’ve heard stories of people waiting in ambulances. Such a thing should not happen in modern times.”
The story of Teresa Simpson first covered by Sky News reporter Greg Milam, after a senior British health official announced that approximately 500 people lost their lives due to delays in the emergency service.
The NHS is currently in the midst of the biggest walkout in its history as nurses in December went on strike over a pay dispute with the government.
According to a study conducted by the London School of Economics, nurses’ real earnings have lagged behind employees in other professions in the UK, especially those in the private sector.
“In the private sector, real median earnings fell by 3.2% between 2011 and 2021, while nurses’ median earnings diminished by 6%,” it said.
As nurses’ salaries declined substantially in real terms from 2010-11 to 2021-22, the annual rate of departure for nurses increased from 8.5% to 10.9%, the research showed. The total number of leavers rose from 27,000 to over 38,000 over the period, marking a 42% rise.
Source: Anadolu Agency