South Wales Evening Post
SWANSEA, Wales — Ambulance chaos has sparked major problems at both of the city’s hospital sites, with queues of around 15 vehicles overall, staff have claimed.
They say that while 10 ambulances were log-jammed outside the city’s Morriston Hospital, there were a further five ambulances in queues outside Swansea’s Singleton Hospital last Wednesday.
The ambulance service said there were four vehicles outside Singleton when problems peaked.
Health bosses said they were overwhelmed with such a high volume of 999 calls within such a short space of time, and there were 11 ambulances lined up at Morriston in the space of an hour at the height of the chaos. One Swansea health worker, based at Morriston Hospital, said the situation in the A&E department had been problematic since the year began.
She said: “At one stage there were 10 ambulances outside the A&E in Morriston, and five outside Singleton Hospital at the same time.
“It’s not a particularly busy time of year. The health board is trying to close beds and move things around in the face of opposition from doctors.”
An ABM University Health Board spokeswoman added: “From time to time there are peaks in emergencies that are particularly difficult to deal with, like the situation that arose on Wednesday when we experienced an unusually high number of 999 ambulances arriving at Morriston A&E within a very short space of time.”
She added: “As these were mainly 999 calls from the general public it is difficult to provide an explanation as to why this happened and was clearly outside our control.”
A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesman added: “During the peak of a high volume of emergencies on July 14 around Swansea, there were four vehicles outside Singleton Hospital at one point in the afternoon.
“It is important to note that while in the ambulance, patients continue to receive care and support.”
Copyright 2010 South Wales Evening Post