Woman dies after getting unconnected oxygen mask as staff thought she was ‘overreacting’
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-dies-after-getting-unconnected-33905403
Posted by Forward-Answer-4407
Woman dies after getting unconnected oxygen mask as staff thought she was ‘overreacting’
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-dies-after-getting-unconnected-33905403
Posted by Forward-Answer-4407
24 Comments
If only blood oxygen level was something that you could check…
…oh wait, you can and this failure is absolutely shameful
There’s only one solution… Vote Reform to Privatise the NHS. Then she would never have been able to afford going to the hospital in the first place.
Problem solved!
A news article about how they will use this as a “Learning experience/tool” in 5-4-3-2……
I am a doctor.
This would have been, at least in part, because she was a young woman. A young, breathless woman is the classic case presentation of an anxiety attack. That archetype is drilled into us. Medicine involves a lot of pattern recognition and this is the unfortunate consequence of that.
Women in pain are too often dismissed as anxious or exaggerating.
My local hospital.
It has a bad reputation.
The last time I was in A&E and old woman, who they were supposed to be watching, got out of bed and fell over and died.
After she was removed the other staff was helping the incompetent one make up a story to write in the report.
This article suggests that she wasn’t seen by a doctor until she was critical enough to go to high care. Until then it only mentions nurses who can’t typically prescribe things like IV fluids, unless they’re ANPs (advanced nurse practitioners). ANPs are more and more frequently used to replace doctors on their rotas despite explicitly not being medically trained.
It isn’t clear from the article but “she’s not that unwell, just a bit tachy and her sats aren’t that bad, probably just a panic attack” is an error to get trained not to make if you’re trained properly. Next time you’re seeing someone for a medical problem make sure you check their job role and ask if they’re a doctor if that’s not clear.
Sounds like triage by vibes. Hopefully this is rare ( good treatment doesn’t make news headlines) but I endured similar negativity from a nurse when I had an infection that was on the verge of sepsis. Nurse did nothing until I started fitting.
The cost of PFI ‘initiatives’ and underfunding,
A deliberate gov’t failure and profits passing into private hands.
Most hospitals pay over half their budget to PFI loans. We’re being robbed
Oldham A&E is absolutely dire. My husband was admitted via ambulance, they gave him aspirin which he’s allergic to (and had a bright wristband they’d put on him to alert for it). They didn’t believe he was in the level of pain he was actually in, physically manhandled him to force him to sit and stand, then discharged him at 3am without any checks. He’d ruptured discs in his back.. it’s left permanent damage. 🤦♀️
One of my colleagues was a young woman in her 20s, admitted there via ambulance with a ruptured appendix. Didn’t believe her, said there was nothing wrong, sent her home. Her mum went ballistic and took her to another A&E who were horrified. She had sepsis from peritonitis, ended up with an abdomen full of drains to try and save her life.
I had the misfortune of surgery at Oldham too. It was a horrendous experience, I refused to go back there for anything. Northern Care Alliance is in a mess, it ranks poorly in the UK trusts and is under review. CQC says ‘requires improvement’.
A patient like this woman, with a history of pulmonary embolism, should not have been treated like a hypochondriac when coming into A&E with poor sats and breathing difficulties.
It’s tyool 2026 and we’re still doing “Have a lie down, love, you’re hysterical.”
Disgraceful. I hope the paramedic gets the book thrown at them by the HCPC and all the other staff that are complicit in this.
Once again, it’s a female. I rarely see tragedies such as these caused to a male. I’m not saying they don’t exist, it’s just more rife in the female population. I’m sick of it.
I was taken to A&E by ambulance in December 2019. My sats at home were in the low 80s but I was still pink and seemingly coping. The hospital took one look at me and shoved my trolley into CDU so not even majors. They gave me an oxygen mask but I was not coping and beginning to panic. The staff ignored me because I think they thought i was being dramatic. I eventually ripped my oxygen mask and screamed for someone to help me. A nurse came over and looked at my sats which were now in the low 70s, she asked a dr what to do and he said ‘if that’s her REAL sats, move her to resus’. Well they were indeed my real sats!! I was taken to resus, a peri arrest call was put out and I was swamped with drs and nurses. I don’t really remember much else from there. My last memory is telling them to do they everything they could for me because I have children before they intubated me and took me to ITU. I spent a month on ITU on a ventilator, in a coma. I wasn’t expected to survive but against all odds I did. So yes, they don’t take women seriously, they didn’t take me seriously when I was in respiratory failure. The ITU staff were fantastic to me, my family and my friends and I owe them my life. The A&E staff however……
I’m a radiographer in the NHS and I’m sick of working with people that don’t care!! If you don’t like other humans and you don’t like caring for vulnerable, unwell people, DON’T train in a caring profession.
The NHS can be excellent but I strongly believe being able to advocate for myself helped saved my life. Not every patient is in a position to do that though.
THIS HAPPENED TO ME!!!!
May 2012 and I had had 2 kids previous blood clots within the last 10 days (I had a baby)
I went in with severe back pain. It hurt so bad to breathe. Dr took one look at me with such disdain and he told me pretty much that I was having a panic attack. That I just needed to calm down and I would leave
Hours went by and he would see me periodically and he would say that I was being dramatic and I was anxious and that I was having a panic attack
As they hooked me up to machines, I went blue and suddenly thought and felt like I had an elephant sat on my chest and it was really sudden even the nurse panicked and she went running to get the Doctor?!? because I apparently did go completely blue
The doctor again came in. He was a very young man maybe in his 20s and told me that I was just being silly and that I was to go home because they would refuse to treat me they’re being so dramatic.
I left, and as I left, I collapse into a corridor. Turns out I had massive bilateral primary embolisms and nearly died, but fortunately a consultant had come to see me and he saved my life
It does not surprise me. Medical misogyny in action. Women are always told we are over reacting, never genuinely unwell. I nearly died due to anaphylaxis during an operation, and a male mental health nurse later told me I brought it on myself and it was just a “severe panic attack”. Sure, you can consciously bring about a panic attack while you are under a general anaesthetic…
Imagine dying with people rolling thier eyes at you.
Every time I have my vitals checked, my oxygen sits at about 91-93 and every time they make me hyperventilate to get the number to the correct one and ignore me saying that I can’t do that constantly so it’s always low, my watch says it, my home monitor says it and theirs say it until they make me do that, totally ignoring that it sits low in the first place and I’ve had an xray with “nodules” that was never rechecked as it was taken at the beginning of lockdown and now it’s buried in notes so no one will listen.
I imagine they made this girl do the same hyperventilation shit just so they can write numbers down that make it look not like an emergency that they should be treating.
I had that happen with pain meds after a surgery. They hung the bag but never connected it to the IV. I kept pushing the med button and finally asked them to call the doctor for more meds. It hurt. They thought I was pain med seeking. Eventually, my sister who is a nurse checked the line and found it wasn’t connected. Then they all panicked thinking they were going to get sued. They sent the risk mgmt director and everything and sent me home with a bunch of supplies. Point is, listen to the patient.
Ah, tale as old as time, medical professionals thinking women are overreacting, giving them subpar medical care, and them dying…
Absolutely tragic and completely avoidable case. Negligence within the NHS is unfortunately commonplace.
Was in A&E a couple of years ago and a nurse said it was just ‘anxiety’ and refused to order any tests. I was back the next day and it turned out to be a rare reaction to some new medication which caused dangerously low blood sodium levels and I ended up admitted for a week in a bed surrounded by shit-stained curtains. At least it was a ward and not a corridor, I guess.
Will never forget how disinterested and rude the nurse was as I tried to explain my symptoms and then the way she almost seemed to enjoy telling me I would have to go home without having any tests done. She never even asked about any medication I was taking. I lost a lot of respect for healthcare professionals after that.
More recently, my elderly mum was recently left with a broken leg for over 2 whole months due to delays getting xray results, then when she was finally admitted to hospital her hip replacement op was postponed 5 times.
Unfortunately we barely have a functioning health service anymore. I have private health insurance and try to use it whenever I can, but unfortunately it’s no good for emergency problems.
Someone needs to tell Welsh Labour HQ it’s shit like this that has made them unpopular not Keir Starmer. Welsh Labour have been in power since 1999, healthcare is a devolved matter.
Having been with my mum, who’s on oxygen 24/7, in hospital for a copd flare up when they put a nebuliser mask on her and didn’t connect her oxygen to it leading to her ending up on 50% oxygen levels until it was discovered I can sadly say it’s unfortunately very common for mistakes to be made.
All I can say is stay with your loved ones and watch over them and don’t assume that just because they are doctors and nurses that they don’t get things wrong.
We also had a nurse walk down the respiratory ward spraying air freshener- which is a common trigger for copd and asthma!
I hope this lady’s family get justice for her.
Failure of imagination on the part of the staff and failure of protocol for the hospital. This is why you need someone to go with you to emergency if at all possible.
I got accused of overreacting in hospital when I had an allergic reaction to a IV drip I could feel my throat closing and was begging them to remove the drip. They did but continued saying I couldn’t have reacted to it….I literally couldn’t breathe and I felt like the inside of my veins were itching. Because they wouldn’t listen its not marked on my records that I had a reaction. I’ve had this and other terrible treatment. Several times I’ve felt unwell enough to go to A&E but too scared from that experience to go. I always think of all the times we don’t hear about these things and hospitals excuse or cover things up
When people are underpaid and overworked, their capacity of empathy and compassion gets drained. It is shameful how the NHS is being mismanaged.