Woman left to die after professional negligence
An investigation into a woman’s death has exposed catastrophic professional negligence by ambulance personnel.
The said negligence is thought to have cost hundreds of lives.
The negligence was perpetrated when call centre staff were not warned of flaws with a computer system that prioritises emergencies before dispatching ambulances.
The 58 year old woman reportedly fell down the stairs and died from personal injury to her head, after 999 controllers in Suffolk did not identify her situation as “life-threatening”.
Her family's injury lawyers, who are to launch legal action, said her kin could not understand why it took so long for an ambulance to be sent to the dying nurse.
This was even after her husband had explained that she was unconscious, and breathing abnormally. An investigation uncovered a critical flaw in the computer system used by most ambulance services.
This flaw downplayed the emergency calls priority thus creating situations which make things worse for the patients.
Peter Walsh, the chief executive of the charity Action Against Medical Accidents, said: “Who knows how many people this could have harmed and how many may have died? Given the volumes of 999 calls involving people who have fallen and are unconscious, there is a risk that thousands were affected.”
Updated on 05/04/2010