A pensioner says he endured three “horrendous” days in an overcrowded A&E department run by a hospital trust recording some of the worst bed waits in the country.
Steven Harris, 69, took himself to the QEQM Hospital in Margate last Sunday morning after waking up with severe abdominal pain – and was there until Tuesday afternoon without ever being given a bed.
For the first 24 hours, he remained in the main A&E waiting area before being moved into a separate room filled with chairs, where he remained and was treated.
During his entire stay, he says he had no proper washing facilities, no change of clothes, and was only offered cold food such as sandwiches and yoghurts.
The retired builder also says a broken toilet in the waiting area and empty water dispensers left staff scrambling to bring round jugs of water which were “quickly” downed.
His ordeal comes as new figures reveal almost 1,200 emergency patients needing to be admitted in east Kent last month waited at least 12 hours for a bed.
Despite being shocked by what he saw – including patients lying on the floor of the waiting room – Mr Harris praised overstretched NHS staff for doing their best under impossible conditions.
“They couldn’t have been nicer, but they were clearly so stressed and so stretched,” he said.
“They were almost running from job to job, multitasking. It was just a ridiculous situation.
“I don’t know how they get up and come back in again in the morning because it’s full on the whole time.”
Mr Harris says he was treated for suspected pancreatitis with IV fluids and pain relief but remained stuck in the chair throughout his stay.
He says one early-morning incident left him particularly shaken.
“It was a very loud siren. They didn’t come in and say, ‘you were woken up because we need to move you’, they just started reading from this list of names,” he said.
“They said to me, ‘go and wait outside, go back into the waiting room’.
“There was no explanation. It’s crazy. That was really scary.”
Mr Harris’s experience reflects wider issues at East Kent Hospitals Trust, which runs A&E departments at the QEQM in Margate and the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.
In July alone, 1,195 people faced waits of at least 12 hours for a ward bed – up 110 on the same month last year – compared with 748 across all three other Kent hospital trusts combined.
One of the main drivers is bed-blocking – where patients well enough to leave hospital cannot be discharged because suitable care packages or placements are not available.
This creates a knock-on effect, leaving emergency departments backed up and new patients waiting hours – sometimes days – to be admitted.
“It’s just horrendous,” Mr Harris said.
“I have absolute empathy and admiration for the staff for what they’re doing. In the face of adversity, they carry on.
“But something needs to change on a higher level.”
Earlier this year, a Kent coroner warned there was a “risk of future deaths unless something is done” about bed-blocking and long A&E waits.
It followed the death of 91-year-old Dorothy Reid, who refused to return to QEQM after previously waiting there “in discomfort for hours” despite having a broken back.
She died at home from a blood clot, having told medics she would not go back to A&E because of her “poor experience”.
North East Kent Coroner Catherine Wood concluded Mrs Reid may not have died when she did had she gone to hospital, but stressed the problem was a “national, not local” crisis.
An EKHUFT spokesperson said: “Our emergency departments remain very busy with staff working hard to care for a significant number of patients.
“We are very sorry that Mr Harris had such a long wait within the department, which is not the experience we want for our patients.”
