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93-Year-Old Former Nurse Left In Hospital Corridor For Six Days

93-Year-Old Former Nurse Left In Hospital Corridor For Six Days

Enid Stevens was also left in urine-soaked clothes for 5 hours after fracturing her spine

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

A 93 year old former nurse given an MBE for her services to the NHS was left in a hospital corridor for six days after fracturing her spine whilst putting on her slippers.

Enid Stevens was left waiting in A&E at St James' Hospital in Leeds for six hours and then on her own in a cubicle for a further five hours in urine-soaked clothes after she became incontinent.

After that ordeal she was given a ward bed for three days before being taken in the middle of the night to a corridor where she remained for nearly a week.

Enid, a widow and great-grandmother of five, said: "What happened to me was the most degrading thing I've ever experienced.

"I worked in the NHS from the age of 18 until I retired when I was 59 and every second of that time I was stood up on my feet - I didn't get an MBE for nothing.

"But I'm not blaming the hospital or the staff there - you have to see it for yourself.

"The place was absolutely heaving - as soon as you ask a nurse to do one thing she's stopped by someone else to do something else."

SWNS

She continued: "There used to be convalescent homes for elderly patients to recover after hospital treatment but the government got rid of them years ago.

"It's all in A&E and there's nowhere to put people except in the corridor. I'm just lucky I had my daughter to go backwards and forwards for everything."

The former theatre nurse, awarded an MBE in 1983 for services to Seacroft Hospital in Leeds is arrived at St James' in an ambulance on the evening of 6 March.

SWNS

Mrs Stephens said: "I was soaked-through with urine in my clothes - it was like a nightmare.

"A nurse passed by so I asked her for some clean clothes but she never came back so I sat there for five hours wet-through."

She eventually changed and was taken to a ward, but only for a few days. She was woken at 2am to be moved to another ward, but there was no room so she was left in a corridor.

She said: "That's where I was left for six days.

"I was blocking the entrance to a doctor's consultation room so I had to be shoved out of the way when the doctors brought patients' families in to speak with them"

Her daughter Barbara Brook said: "Mum was right next to where they kept the apron and mask dispensers and the staff had to lean over her to get them.

"It was so upsetting for her - just awful really."

SWNS

Julian Hartley, Chief Executive of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "Our communication with Mrs Stevens and her family during her stay should have been better and I sincerely apologise for her experience of care.

"Mrs Stevens was cared for in a non-designated bed space for longer than is acceptable and I am sorry that we weren't able to move her to a dedicated bed space during her stay.

"Unfortunately there are pressures across the whole health and social care system which impact on our ability to discharge some patients who need further non-hospital support or care."

"Regrettably we sometimes have to move some patients to a non-designated bed space for a temporary period of time.

"This is so we can meet the needs of patients who require closer clinical observation and monitoring."

Featured Image Credit: SWNS

Topics: Leeds, News, Hospital, UK, NHS