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Great-great gran Ruth Tonks, 86, died at St JohnĀs Hospital, Livingston, West Lothian, on January 2 (Karl Tonks / SWNS) Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
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Your support makes all the difference. Read more A nurse practitioner whose mum died after a two-day wait on an A&E trolley said struggling staff did all they could for her.
Great-great gran Ruth Tonks, 86, died at St Johnās Hospital, Livingston, West Lothian, on January 2 after developing a chest infection over Christmas.
Her son Karl, 51, an advanced nurse practitioner at a GP clinic in Fife, said he was shocked by the situation but said NHS pressures are worse than ever before.
Mum-of-four Ruth, from Whitburn, West Lothian, was taken by ambulance to hospital on December 28.
She was kept on a trolley in A&E for two days before taken to the medical assessment ward.
When medics realised she was dying they tried to take her into a side room to give the family privacy - but were forced to give them to two newly admitted patients.
Karl asked if he could take his mum home but doctors fearer she was not stable enough to be moved and didnāt want her to die in an ambulance.
Ruth was eventually moved to a bay on a quieter ward where her family could say their goodbyes.
Karl, also from Whitburn, said: āOn Christmas day mum said she wasnāt feeling right in the evening and that she was just going to go to bed.
āThe next couple of days she still wasnāt well and then on the 28th I said to her we are going to have to get the GP in to see you.
āThe GP came and said he thought it was a chest infection and gave her some antibiotics.
āShe was really reluctant to go into hospital because of the current situation but the GP said if she was to deteriorate, she would need to go in.
āThat night I noticed her breathing had really changed and I told her I was going to have to call and ambulance and she reluctantly agreed.
āThey said it could take up to an hour but the ambulance was there in 40 minutes.
āIn A&E they said she was really quite unwell and started her on some treatment straight away.
āShe was on a trolley in a cubical in A&E for two days before a bed became available in the medical assessment unit.
āI could see she wasnāt getting better and knew something was really wrong.
āThe doctor called telling us to come in and bring the family with us, she wasnāt responding to treatment and was deteriorating.
āThatās when we decided to stop the treatment and just try and make her as comfortable as possible.
āI did ask if we could take her home but the doctors didnāt think she was stable enough to be moved and didnāt know if she would make the journey.
āThey didnāt want her to die in the back of an ambulance.
āWe did get offered a side room twice, but both times urgent patients came in who needed to be isolated and that take priority.
āThey moved mum onto a quieter ward where we would have some privacy with her.
āShe was on a bay with other patients, but it was quiet and we were able to be there with her.ā
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(Karl Tonks / SWNS) Karl has worked in the NHS since the late 1980s and said he has never seen it under so much strain.
He said he was shocked by the situation with his mum but praised hard working hospital and ambulance staff who did the best they could for her.
Karl said: āI was shocked at the situation but not angry, who is there to be angry with.
āThe staff did everything they could under the circumstance for mum.
āYou could see the nurses getting the brunt of it from people, and you can understand it, itās peopleās relatives, but they are not the ones to blame.
āYou can see the nurses are emotionally drained and having to crisis manage all the time.
āThe NHS was broken before covid and covid was really the last straw.
āWe didnāt even have a chance to recover from it before all the winter bugs.
āEveryone is just hammered.
āI have not seen it this bad ever and I have been working in the NHS since 1980s.
āIt has never been this bad or as prolonged as this, we have seen tough times but not like this.
āItās so scary, I really donāt know how the NHS is going to survive.
āThe health service has become third world.
āWe are going to lose a lot of experienced staff, I know people who are retiring early because they have just had enough.ā
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