For families on the Isle of Wight, ambulance delays are even more costly

This blog is written by Lauretta, a Just Treatment supporter based on the Isle of Wight.

In 2018 I lost my dad, after watching him turn into a shell of himself, sick for most of my childhood. But this isn’t my dad’s story; this is the story of a family left behind six years after his death, and of a husband and wife reunited in death. 

In autumn 2024, I had recently graduated from university. My brother was moving to Australia, another brother was coming down from Germany for a week, and one of my sisters was on holiday in Greece. Less than a week after my brother left to go back to Germany, I was home alone with my mum when she collapsed. I immediately called 999 and was told to stay with her and that an ambulance was en route.

In my panic, I messaged our family group chat, forgetting that three out of six children were not in the country. The siblings who were able to came to the house. As my mum's condition worsened, we called the 999 operator again and again. Each time we were assured that an ambulance was en route. We lived only five minutes away from the hospital, and at no point were we advised to take our mother ourselves even though this would have been quicker.

Over the course of 45 minutes, we watched in horror as her cognition declined, her hands changed colours, and she broke into a cold sweat. The recommended ambulance response time for a Category A emergency is seven minutes. From her records, we later found that she had been classified in this category from my very first call.

When the paramedics finally arrived, she went almost immediately into cardiac arrest. We were asked to help lift her from the sofa onto the floor. The paramedics then spent a devastating hour performing CPR. During that time, her heart stopped five times.

In this time, the house flooded with paramedics. Cars and ambulances lined the street outside our home. All we could do was watch, while our siblings who were abroad tried to find out what was happening.

After she was stabilised enough to be moved, we were informed that she would be taken by air ambulance. We live on the Isle of Wight, and the only hospital on the island is grossly under-equipped. The closest specialist heart hospital is in Portsmouth which can only be reached by boat or helicopter.

Unfortunately, we found out in her records that the air ambulance ran out of fuel and had to divert to Southampton.

Myself, my sister and brother, along with her husband and our nan, travelled by car ferry. It was an agonising journey. For over an hour, we had no idea whether we would find our mother alive on the other side of the water.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, it took almost four hours before any medical staff could tell us what department she was in, let alone provide an update on her condition. Eventually, we found her in the ICU, attached to tubes, with blood on her teeth and pillow, and a vest around her abdomen to help keep her organs warm.

A doctor took us aside and explained that her condition was critical. She was unstable, and even if she did wake up, there was no way of knowing the extent of any brain damage until then. We were told that multiple blood clots in her lungs had caused the catastrophic heart attack.

I will never forget standing in that room with our mum, and then in the waiting room, juggling phone calls to siblings who were desperate for news. As they scrambled to get back to the UK before anything happened, those of us who were with Mum were told to go home, get some rest, and return the following day. We were told that if we had any questions, we could ring the hospital.

The following morning, the first thing we did was call for an update. The devastating news was that Mum had declined overnight. Her organs were now beginning to fail.

It was on this second day that my brothers and sister made it home. By the evening, although her condition remained critical, she was stable. Once again, we were advised to go home and get some rest. While some family members stayed behind at the hospital, still waiting for one brother to arrive from Australia, the rest of us got on the boat and came home.

Later that evening, we received the call that nobody ever wants to get. We were told that we needed to get back to the hospital immediately. Mum's condition was deteriorating, and it was likely that she would die soon.

The problem was that we were separated by a stretch of water. There was only one ferry left that evening. If Mum died before the ferry arrived, we would not make it in time, and if we missed it, the next crossing would not be until the morning. Thankfully, we made it to the hospital by 2 a.m.

Upon arrival, we were told that the doctors had done everything they could and that treatment was being withdrawn. We then spent the next six hours at her bedside, painfully watching the machines. We were told that when her blood pressure dropped too low, that would be when she passed away.

After what felt like an eternity, a nurse came in and switched the monitors off so that we would stop torturing ourselves by watching them. After six hours by her bedside, my mum passed away surrounded by her six children, our partners, and her mum in an ICU bed.

The Isle of Wight is supposed to be one of the safest places to raise a family and grow old, but I would argue that the limited medical care here makes it not only unsafe but deadly. Patients on the Isle of Wight frequently have to rely on unreliable and expensive ferries to get them to better equipped hospitals, sometimes missing treatment and appointments due to cancelled or delayed ferries. And add in the cost of travelling, with the Solent often referred to as the most expensive stretch of water in the world. Then lifesaving treatment is made inaccessible and creates a postcode lottery for patient care. 

I cannot say for certain that if an ambulance had arrived earlier that my mum would still be here, but I can say that at 22 I was not prepared to have lost both my parents. I was not prepared to navigate my early 20s and all that comes with it alone, nor were my siblings. I would do anything to have a hug and catch up with my parents. But I cannot do that, so instead I choose to tell their story and fight so that other families do not have to go through this.

For families on the Isle of Wight, we face additional challenges and financial costs when a family member is transported to a hospital on the mainland due to a lack of resources on the island. As a family we were lucky that we could pull together the hundreds of pounds we spent at short notice, but not everyone can afford that. Subsidised travel would have eased the financial burden we took on. 

I wish we would have known that an ambulance coming for my mum was going to take longer - we might have been able to get her there ourselves, but in any event, families like mine and operators telling us to hold on shouldn’t be put in this position. The government needs to tackle the delays in urgent care so that families like mine aren’t left waiting, and with a new cabinet about to be seated there is an opportunity to make sure that change happens fast.