A mother of three spent a record of eight days on a hospital corridor in ‘inhumane and disgusting conditions’ despite telling managers she had crippling stomach pain.
Sarah Dodd, 56, spent just under 213 hours on a trolley between 1 February to 9 February at the Beech C ward at Worcestershire Royal Hospital.
According to the former solicitor’s diary of her ordeal, her make-shift bed was positioned in a six-foot-wide passage, close to bins for human waste.
Miss Dodd was diagnosed as having a perforated and infected gallbladder last November which developed into severe stomach pain in late January and early February.
On the advice of her GP, she went to the hospital’s A&E department and was guaranteed by staff her condition would be treated within a day.
But according to her diary, published in The Sun on Sunday, she spent the next eight days, hungry, without sleep and petrified.
Alarmingly, on her fourth day she was awoken by an elderly woman suffering from dementia, stroking her hair with her fingers.
The next day Miss Dodd was asked to move her meal tray to allow a patient to squeeze down the corridor, she did so, but her food was not returned to her.
Sarah Dodd (pictured), 56, spent just under 213 hours on a trolley between 1 February to 9 February at the Beech C ward at Worcestershire Royal Hospital
According to the former solicitor’s diary of her ordeal, her make-shift bed (pictured) was positioned in a six-foot-wide passage, close to bins for human waste
On the eighth day, finally Miss Dodd, who is accommodating and mild-mannered woman, made a fuss.
She wrote down in her diary: ‘Day Eight: My mental health is at breaking point. I demand to speak to a beds manager.
‘After a brief stand-off, I finally get a bed on a ward’.
Reliving the harrowing nightmare, Miss Dodd added: ‘The way I was treated was disgusting and inhumane.
‘The hospital was so overcrowded, there were other people sleeping next to me in the corridor – I had fully grown men sleeping 3ft from my head. It didn’t feel safe.’
In 2017, two patients died at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital after being left on trolleys.
The first patient died from a cardiac arrest after 35 hours waiting in a corridor and the second had an aneurysm, and despite being taken into the resuscitation area died.
Miss Dodd’s experience has already been reported to Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, who described it as: ‘absolutely appalling,’ and a ‘damning indictment’ of the state of the NHS.
She continues to suffer from nightmares because of what she experienced in the hospital (pictured)
NHS England figures showed 61,529 people waited more than 12 hours in A&E departments from a decision to admit to actually being admitted in January, up from 54,207 in December.
At least 16 NHS trusts admitted last year patients faced waits of two days or more, following the submission of a freedom of information request.
Miss Dodd, from Kidderminster, stopped working in 2011 because of a musculoskeletal pain condition called fibromyalgia.
She added: ‘By day eight, I couldn’t take it anymore.
‘I told them, “This is beyond a joke. People keep leaving so why can’t you find me a bed?”.
‘The nurses were very apologetic. They told me one sister had been raising my case at the staff meeting every day, but the bed managers said there was no space.’
By 11 February, Miss Dodd was discharged from hospital and returned home to her family.
However, she continues to suffer from nightmares because of what she experienced in the hospital.
At least 16 NHS trusts admitted last year patients faced waits of two days or more, following the submission of a freedom of information request. Pictured: File photo
Giving her view on who is to blame, Miss Dodd praised the nurses and doctors but described the managers as a ‘disgrace’.
‘On February 9, they found me a bed,’ Miss Dodd continued.
‘There were two more spare beds in that room. I was allowed to go home on February 11 and since then I have suffered constant nightmares where I am back in the hospital corridor.
‘I blame the NHS managers for what happened.’
Last month, NHS England Chief Amanda Pritchard admitted on Radio 4’s Today Programme, much of a £23 billion boost to the health care system was swallowed up in pay rises.
She said: ‘In the current financial context, we can’t keep asking the Government for more state funding… so we need to think much more radically, particularly about capital.
‘I think we now must consider private capital investment in the NHS.’
Sarah Shingler, chief nursing officer at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, told The Sun on Sunday: ‘We apologise to Ms Dodd if any aspect of her care fell short of the high standards we set ourselves.
‘We will look into the concerns she raised and will reply to her directly with a full response.’
