"We had to drive our mother to the hospital ourselves"

We noticed my mother was in the midst of taking a stroke on Thursday morning. We had called for an ambulance immediately and we were told that my mother was high priority and an ambulance would be dispatched soon. We waited and waited for the ambulance to arrive to which no ambulance was seen. I rang back to get an update as we are all aware of the importance of receiving medical care when you are displaying symptoms of a stroke- which my mother was displaying all of the symptoms of having one. I was told by the operator of the Ambulance service that my mother is high priority. However, there hasn’t been an ambulance dispatched yet. I couldn’t comprehend how my mother was a high priority case and there wasn’t an ambulance at our door yet never mind not even being dispatched yet! I find this to be absolutely appalling as when you are in dire need of help you can’t get it. The operator then said if we were able to assist my mother to a car to take her to hospital ourselves. Luckily the rest of my siblings had came to the house at that point and we assisted her out to the car.

When we arrived at Craigavon Area Hospital we went into triage straight away and was seen by the stroke team who were very attentive and professional.

After going for scans mummy was admitted to Ramone Ward 3 - Acute Frailty Assessment Unit. I have to mention the care in this ward was second best to none. All the staff were very caring and welcoming during my mother’s stay here. The ward was very clean and the staff had taken into account of my mother’s likes and dislikes with regards to food choices. The nurses, nursing assistants, OT’s, speech and language therapists, physios and Dr’s were very good at explaining the care of mummy to us. I just want to mention the nurse specialist Margaret for being so caring to mummy and explaining her recovery to her and putting our family worry’s at ease.

The pharmacist Sarah-Louise was very good at explaining the change of medication mummy was going to be on. There is many more staff to mention but too many to mention on the top of our heads but just wanted to thank you all for the care of our mother.