Three-hour ambulance wait for broken hip pensioner Audrey Brennan

Nov 9 2009 By Dave Himelfield

A PENSIONER who broke her hip in a fall had to wait three hours for an ambulance.

And daughter Carol Holmes believes a communication breakdown was responsible for her mother Audrey Brennan’s wait.

Ms Brennan, 71, of Moldgreen’s Douglas Avenue, fractured her right hip falling on her kitchen floor on the evening of October 30.

Ms Brennan, who has Parkinson’s disease and arthritis, had been dropped off at her home by Carol and her husband, John, earlier that evening.

When the retired school cleaner failed to answer her phone later that evening, Mr and Mrs Holmes returned to Ms Brennan’s house to find her lying paralysed on the kitchen floor.

The couple called 999 at around 9.15pm and explained Ms Brennan could not move and was complaining of pain in her groin and leg.

They were told an ambulance was on its way.

But an hour later, after the ambulance failed to arrive, the couple rang 999 again and were told an ambulance would be on its way as soon as possible.

At approximately 10.45pm the pair received a phone call from an ambulance advisor reassuring them that help was on its way.

The ambulance arrived at around 12.15pm – three hours after Audrey’s fall, the couple said.

Ms Brennan arrived at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary at around 1am.

Mr and Mrs Holmes say they were told their request for an ambulance had come through as a ‘low priority’ for a ‘woman with a pain in her leg and Parkinson’s disease’.

Carol, 46, of Newsome, said: "Mum was getting more and more distressed because she wanted to move. It must have seemed like an eternity for her.

"I was really worried if she had hurt herself internally. So we were panicking for her because we couldn’t see what was wrong.