On June 16 this year, an 81-year-old woman from Bolesławiec who had undergone a serious procedure was to be transported from Wrocław to Bolesławiec. The patient’s daughter, Weronika Kumosz, learned at around 6:00 p.m. that the ambulance was bringing her mother. The ambulance did not arrive until 11:30 p.m. “We waited 5.5 hours for our mother,” Mrs. Weronika tells the IstotneInformacje.pl website. “We were beside ourselves. When the ambulance arrived, my mother was unconscious and cold. She looked as if she had been filled with injections.”
The 81-year-old woman died at home several days after arriving in Bolesławiec. According to Weronika Kumosz, the hours-long journey may have contributed to her mother’s death. “It hurts me that elderly people are treated this way. The ambulance did not have to transport my mother like a sack of potatoes,” Mrs. Weronika complains. “The driver was vulgar toward us. He said that he had also transported another patient.”
A completely different version of events is presented by Aleksander Sala, director of a private ambulance service in Wrocław. In an email to our editorial office, he explains that the ambulance arrived to collect the patient at approximately 2:00 p.m. However, it turned out that “the surgeon had not yet finished the discharge procedure and the nurses asked the ambulance to return somewhat later, even closer to 5:00 p.m. […] The team returned to collect the patient just after 5:00 p.m.”
The director reports that preparing the patient for transport took the paramedics 30 minutes, while traveling from Kamieńskiego Street [przy której znajduje się szpital, w którym przebywała 81-latka – przyp. red.] to the motorway entrance took approximately an hour. “During the transport, weather conditions were disastrous, forcing the team to stop the vehicle briefly because of what is known as a cloudburst. […] When the transport was resumed, the ambulance ran over a sharp object, causing a wheel failure, which also required a stop and replacement of the damaged tire,” Aleksander Sala states.
The director also stresses that the patient’s condition was monitored continuously: “There can be no question of any negligence on the part of Sal-Med. According to our staff’s reports, the patient’s condition (from the moment she was taken from the ward until she was handed over to another medical facility) did not change, and certainly did not deteriorate in any way. This is also evidenced by the fact that, after being admitted to the emergency department of the Bolesławiec hospital, the patient was taken to a regular ward rather than a monitored one.”
According to Aleksander Sala, all the accusations made by the family of the deceased woman from Bolesławiec are unfounded. “The shouting and physical altercation with our staff in the driveway of the Bolesławiec hospital reflected a lack of personal culture and respect for healthcare workers. Our employees were accused of bringing in a patient who was in very serious condition and should have been transported by a resuscitation team, but it was not Sal-Med that decided to discharge the patient or determine the type of transport,” the director writes in his email. He adds: “I am sorry that our society, without any medical education, is so eager to make a quick and negative judgment of people devoted to saving human lives.”
(information provided by Gerard Augustyn)
Updated 2009-07-15 10:32
At the request of the deceased woman’s family, comments have been disabled.