‘I was told to phone my own ambulance while I was having a heart attack’

A grandmother has urged health chiefs to release CCTV to prove she was told to ring her own ambulance while suffering a heart attack.

Furious Hannah Barnes claims her complaints are being ignored after she struggled in agony and with severe chest pains into the Palmer Community Hospital walk-in centre in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear.

The grandmother-of-three was forced to frantically search her bag for her mobile phone before calling ambulance crews for help, she said.

A row has now erupted after the 59-year-old’s formal complaint was dismissed following an internal investigation.

Mrs Barnes said: “I thought I was going to die. I managed to get in there and asked for the receptionist to get me an ambulance. She looked up, looked at a colleague and said ‘no I can’t’. I was walking out and she said, ‘haven’t you got a mobile phone, can’t you ring one yourself?’

“I was in agony and she wouldn’t do anything to help me. She just refused point blank. The health centre said in a letter that they had interviewed the receptionist. They are saying she said she would get me a doctor immediately when one became free but that is not right.

“They will have it all on CCTV. All they need to do is look at it and they will be able to see what happened.”

Mrs Barnes’ “nightmare” ordeal began when she started to feel unwell while visiting her sister last June. Knowing the symptoms of a heart attack it was her second in six months she headed for the nearby walk-in clinic for help. Mrs Barnes walked out of the centre and desperately dialled 999 after being denied help, she claims. She was rushed by ambulance to Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.

She said: “Apparently all my veins went into spasm and they couldn’t get any lines into me and they had to go into the groin. A main vessel burst and caused a massive haematoma, which is still not healed now.

“I looked terrible. I was all swollen and black and blue.”

Her sister Tina made an official complaint to the Newcastle-based Northern Doctors Urgent Care (NDUC), which provides the out-of-hours service at the health centre.

She received a reply in July stating the receptionist had been interviewed and told investigators she did not tell Mrs Barnes to get herself an ambulance. They agreed to carry out a second investigation after Mrs Barnes made it clear she was unhappy at the response to the initial complaint.

Mrs Barnes said she would be told the outcome within six weeks of the second complaint, on November 17. She said she was still waiting for a response.

She said: “You wouldn’t treat a dog like I’ve been treated. I think they are just hoping I forget about this and go away.”

A spokesman for NDUC said: “In this case, the receptionist advised that she would get a doctor.

“Had Mrs Barnes remained in the centre she would have been immediately attended to by a doctor and the appropriate action taken.”

She added: “We apologise for not responding to Mrs Barnes sooner.

“This has been due to circumstances outside our control. However, we acknowledge and sincerely apologise for not notifying Mrs Barnes of this and have made contact.”