Those active on the Isle of Wight social media circle will have seen appeals last week from well-known Isle of Wight authors, Bob and Carol Bridgestock, in relation to their daughter, Sam Farren, who’d been stuck in A&E for over 12 hours with little evidence of action.
After apparently being told last week by the hospital to come off Twitter and Facebook because their time was being taken up having to respond to the media, Sam’s parents have returned to social media today in order to raise awareness of what their daughter is going through.
So severe is Sam’s situation, that she told her father this week,
“If this is what it’s going to be like, I don’t want to live.”
Under observation for five years
29 year old Sam has suffered back problems for around five years due to the early deterioration of three vertebrae, resulting in a prolapse.
She had been under the supervision of a consultant a St Mary’s Hospital in Newport, Isle of Wight and last November, after undergoing tests he’d sent her to Southampton Hospital for, was placed on the emergency operations list, awaiting a date for stabilising surgery, which she was told would be in February this year.
Escalation of problems
However, at the beginning of the year, Sam suffered a severe spasm in her back whilst at work, was stretchered off to the hospital and has spent the last six weeks unable to stand or walk without the aid of a zimmerframe.
Due to the prolapse, she’s become incontinent because of the pressure on her bladder, has to be moved around in a wheelchair and according to her father, has been “drugged up to the eyeballs” since.
Fallen through the gap
Last week, Sam’s GP told her parents he was at his wits’ end and called an ambulance to take her to A&E. Whilst she was in a cubicle 12+ hours she learnt that her consultant had gone on compassionate leave and his ‘list’ had not been passed onto another consultant.
Sam had fallen through the gap. According to Bob, Southampton Hospital had denied any knowledge of Sam’s proposed surgery and whilst she was being discharged from A&E at St Mary’s last week, she was given suggestions, such as “do some pilates”, and told to ‘effectively self-medicate’ at home.
Kept in the dark
OnTheWight contacted the IW NHS last Friday with questions about Sam’s case, but were told,
“The IOW NHS Trust has acknowledged the concerns raised on Social Media. Unfortunately we cannot discuss individual cases, however our Patient Experience Lead has now personally visited the patient and is liaising directly with the family to support them.”
Sam was readmitted to hospital on Sunday and has been there since.
Invoked the Patients’ Charter
Bob told OnTheWight it had taken seven hours to make a formal complaint about the situation and things seemed to move forward once they’d invoked the Patients’ Charter on Monday.
However, despite the ‘Patient Experience Lead’ doing all she could, and the nursing staff being “absolutely brilliant” – the ward sister treating Sam as if her own daughter – Bob and Carol say they’d been kept in the dark.
“Everyone seemed to disappear into the woodwork,” said Bob.
Social media campaign
It was not until her parents returned to social media just before 5pm yesterday (Thursday), and the Daily Mail showed interest in the story, that the NHS finally, after six days of silence, announced an appointment had been secured at Southampton for today (Friday).
Carol and Bob had given the CCG a deadline of noon before they would return to social media campaigning for their daughter.
Sam was this morning strapped into a wheelchair, medicated with morphine and transferred to Southampton hospital for an assessment with a consultant.
Her husband, Tom, and parents Carol and Bob, are hopeful that she’ll be referred for surgery asap. We’ll let you know the outcome, but for Sam’s sake, we hope it is resolved as quickly as possible.
Others experiencing the same problems
In our discussion with Bob, he finished by saying that during the last week many Islanders have not only left wonderful messages of support on Facebook, but that also many Islanders had told them of similar stories, urging them to make Sam’s situation public in the hope it may help others stuck in limbo.
