Never Again: The NHS crisis cost my husband his life
This blog is written by Samina Rahman.
Last winter my husband Iqbal Rahman was failed by the NHS in the most fundamental way. On Christmas Eve Iqbal’s heart failed, and it took over one hour and twenty minutes for an ambulance to arrive. By the time it did, Iqbal had died.
This was the direct result of over a decade of privatisation and cuts to the NHS. The health service we all think we can rely on at these life and death moments has been deliberately broken. Unless things change quickly, this winter will see many more people needlessly losing those they love, in horrific circumstances. That’s why myself and my daughters are launching the ‘Never Again’ campaign with Just Treatment. We need urgent investment in our NHS to ensure that no more families have to go through what we have endured.
Last Christmas Eve Iqbal, myself, our daughter Sana and her children were due to be spending Christmas together in Hereford. Iqbal was already feeling unwell when he arrived. I work for the NHS as a Speech Therapist and realised that Iqbal’s symptoms suggested he was experiencing heart problems. He was complaining of extreme shoulder pain and was excessively sweating.
We first rang 999 at 7:07pm and were put through to West Midlands Ambulance Service. Iqbal was triaged as a category 5 case, requiring a callback with advice from a paramedic or nurse. As Iqbal’s condition continued to deteriorate we tried to lift him into a car to take him to hospital but were unable to 40 minutes later we called 999 again. This time Iqbal was triaged as category 2 and an ambulance was dispatched but then diverted to a higher priority call. We rang a third time at 8.04pm after waiting for almost an hour, and whilst on the phone to dispatchers my husband stopped breathing. Guidelines state an ambulance should have arrived within about seven minutes after this. It arrived at 8.28pm.
When the ambulance finally reached us the paramedics worked to save Iqbal’s life, but it was too late. Iqbal died feeling nobody was coming to help him, and it’s incredibly hard to accept that. We were not the only people traumatised that night - the paramedics were heartbroken at Iqbal’s death; they were never given the chance to save his life.
The serious incident report sets out that Iqbal’s death was a result of underfunding as well as mistakes that the call handlers made that night. But this goes beyond individuals. The pressure that call handlers and first responders face are horrendous - they make impossible choices in a system which does not allow them to do the job that they signed up to do. But this pressure meant that critical mistakes were made for my family and for others across the country. These mistakes meant my husband did not receive the care he deserved at the end of his life, and our lives have changed indelibly.
It’s incredibly painful to talk about what happened to Iqbal, but we’re doing so because we’re determined that people know the real life impacts of starving our NHS of resources. I always thought if I called an ambulance when I really needed one, then an ambulance would come. My trust was irrevocably broken that night but I am determined to rebuild it.
Nobody wants a health service that can’t deliver lifesaving treatment. Things have to change and change now if our health service is to survive. We simply do not have time to wait. That’s why myself and my family are launching the Never Again campaign with Just Treatment, who are bringing together a group of people directly affected by the NHS crisis – be that bereaved families or those who have not received the care they should have done.
Iqbal was a wonderful, generous, caring and funny Dad, husband and person. He shouldn’t have died like that. Nobody should. Nothing will ever change what happened to us, but together we can fight to ensure this never happens again.
If you have also been directly affected by the crisis in our NHS please get in touch - we’d love to talk to you about your experience and possible ways to get involved in our Never Again campaign. You can drop our team member Emma an email on emma@justtreatment.org - or if you have a story you are ready to share, you can submit it via our online form by clicking here.