Parkinson's Patient Waited 10 Hours for Ambulance

0:00On April 16, a 74-year-old woman with Parkinson's disease in Northern Ireland waited 10 hours for an ambulance after falling at home and breaking her shoulder. Irene Lowry was left in severe pain on the floor, and her daughter Julie called emergency services multiple times with no clear arrival time. The Northern Ireland ambulance service finally apologized for the delay. The service explained they face huge pressures, like ambulances stuck at hospitals for delayed patient handovers, leaving fewer crews free for new calls. This backlog hits response times hard, even for urgent cases. Julie described the ordeal as horrific, hearing her mom scream an agony for hours with no pain relief. She even reached out to their local GP for help, but got told to just wait it out until the ambulance showed up just after 1am. Parkinson's makes things tougher. It's a brain-conditioned causing tremors, stiffness, and trouble controlling muscles, which meant Irene's shoulder kept, rotating and crunching bones as she lay there.

1:02Now she's recovering an interim area hospital, awaiting a transfer to bail fast. NIS stresses they prioritize life-threatening emergencies first, and calls these weights unacceptable. They're teaming up with hospitals to speed up patient flow and urges folks not to make repeat calls unless things worsen. As that adds more strain to, the system.