Over the weekend, we received the following message from an oppo (aka ‘colleague’) who works for the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust. We have always said that our page, Emergency Services Humour, is a community as well as a source of humour, stories, blogs and banter.
That is why we share stories such as these, which are sent into us via our website.
With these sort of direct accounts from colleagues who are at the ‘coal face’, we feel that it is important to ensure that we also invite the organisation which has been mentioned in them, to also respond.
The Welsh Ambulance Service did respond, via their Director of Operations, Richard Lee. Mr Lee’s response can be found below the story.
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From an anonymous colleague on the #ThinGreenLine:
“Today, I find myself sat here writing this with a small tear coming from my eye.
I have the amazing task of working for the Welsh Ambulance Service. I am part of people lives every single day whether it be bringing a new life into the work or helping you to save your loved one’s life all in a few split seconds.
I totally love my job and wouldn’t change it for the world.
Unfortunately, at the moment I find myself dreading going to work, in fact the whole dysfunctional family that we are all dread going into work. Each and every day the amount of abuse we face, and the delays people are waiting are getting worse and we find out selves shouting when will this madness end!
The past week we have seen major rise in calls to the service many of them genuine and life threatening but unfortunately a lot are not of a life-threatening nature.
This week things got so bad the trust was escalated into REAP Level 4, Something that hasn’t happened for a long long time. However, when this happened the most magical thing happened as well. As if by magic the stack of over 250 waiting call was reduced to about 50, hundreds of ambulance officers appeared to be logging onto vehicles and the clinical hub in the control room became fully staffed and like a bee hive.
But the question we keep asking ourselves is “Why should it get to a state like this before anything is done?” & “why does poor old Betty have to wait on the floor for 3 days for an ambulance before this happens?”. If this can be done when we are escalated into Level 4 why can’t it be done all the time.
When will the welsh government wake up and address the situations in the hospitals and address the fact there are not enough ambulance in Wales. When will they allow us to say “No we are not sending an ambulance to your mate who cut his finger” & “No we are not sending an ambulance to Dave because he is pissed up! What emergency medical intervention does he require from a highly skilled paramedic because he drank too much”
Like I said the past week has just been absolutely horrific, we have had people calling in the early hours of the morning for chest pain and stroke symptom, 12 hours later they are still waiting, and the family is calling back in, not to ask for an ETA but to tell us the patient has stopped breathing.
We are all literally sat in work and watching people die in front of us on a computer screen, it is absolutely heart breaking.
We all joined the service to make a difference not to watch people die.
Moral is at an all-time low across all departments. Senior management don’t really seem to care about us, in fact i’m sure the majority of them pretty much don’t even know we exist.
Fingers crossed someone in local government or management may come across this and do something about the mess the whole system is in. IT CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS ANYMORE”
We contacted the Welsh Ambulance Service, and they responded as follow:
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I’m a trainee integrative psychotherapist in Derbyshire. I’m currently setting up my own private practice and would like to offer my services at a low rate, for all the services.
Having worked in the NHS I have full understanding of the issues staff face.
For some people the 8-12 weeks in house service is not enough however, the price of private individual therapy is costly.
I’m UKCP registered