Posted on 01/08/2023 11:56:56 AM PST by nickcarraway
Hannah Marie's heartbroken fiancé had only 10 minutes to say goodbye to her
Tributes have been paid to an 'amazing' mum-of-three who died just three days before Christmas. Hannah Marie had to wait 11 hours for an ambulance just days before her death.
Now her heartbroken fiancé is calling for government intervention before more people lose their lives in the NHS health crisis. Hannah, 36, started to feel unwell on December 18, so partner James Jackman called for an ambulance at 7.20pm.
The Mirror reports the ambulance would not arrive at their address until the following morning at 6.15am after it was delayed ‘due to demand’. Hannah died three days later on December 22.
Hannah had cystic fibrosis - an inherited condition in which the lungs and digestive system can become clogged with thick, sticky mucus. She had been seeing a specialist at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, near to their home.
Now, her fiancé has recalled his heart-breaking final moments with her as she struggled through her last breaths. James, 38, claims that if the ambulance arrived on time and treatment started 11 hours prior, it "potentially could have made a difference" to saving Hannah's life.
The "fantastic partner and mother" leaves behind three children Miley, 9, Lloyd, 12, and Nikita, 16. James says he has "got no choice" but to cope with Hannah's death.
Hannah commonly suffered with chest infections, but James said ‘not this time’ - something was different. On the night of December 18, the former builder recalled that "she was unwell, breathing-wise".
"Her breathing wasn’t right. So I called an ambulance at 7.20pm, and just tried to make Hannah comfortable."
The couple waited for 11 hours, but James said he has ‘not heard a thing from the ambulance as to why it took 11 hours’. He added: "But, I did have an apology from the paramedics for the delay.
"At no point do I have anything negative to say about the paramedics as they were great and they were really lovely. All the staff that have been involved... it is not their fault at all."
James, who has made it clear that NHS staff are not to blame for Hannah's passing, has urged the government to "act fast" and "pump more resources in" to solve the NHS in crisis "because they haven't got enough staff".
"This needs to come from the top," he says. "There are not enough resources to cope, and they need to organise this, as whatever is happening now is not working."
James, from the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, added: "Because whatever is happening, people are dying. They’re just dying."
When emergency services finally arrived at the family home, he recalls seeing paramedic "staff exhausted," adding he could "physically see on their faces that they were tired and exhausted."
Hannah was then taken to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital but ended up "waiting quite a number of hours for a bed up in critical care." James said: "Eventually, she got a bed in critical care and was taken up. But her blood pressure wouldn't improve and her oxygen levels weren't improving. They had antibiotics, all sorts of antibiotics driven in her. And then on the day that she died, I had a phone call."
He continued to say that he left the hospital a few hours before the call, but was informed by medics that Hannah wanted him to come in because she had been struggling overnight. The dad recalls getting back to the hospital on December 22 "very fast" where, sadly, he only had ten minutes with her before she passed away.
Devastated James then revealed that his last few moments with his fiancée was the hardest moment of his life, especially as "she knew she was going". "I just told her I loved her," he said. "And that was as much of a conversation as we had because she was trying to breathe through her high pressure oxygen mask."
The fiancé believes that Hannah's care could have been "implemented 11 hours previously" and that could have "well made the difference" in saving her life. "Having those antibiotics earlier" potentially would have made all the difference, he adds.
News of Hannah's passing has left her young children completely "heartbroken" as they "had such a fabulous relationship with their mother". He continued to say: "She was a very mumsy-mum and was very outgoing... she really was. The whole thing had just left us numb."
While they are being supported by their school, James says that he is also being supported by friends and family and the cystic fibrosis ward at Hannah's hospital, who have also applied for a £750 grant for support. But the heartbroken single dad says that despite the support system he has in place, he has been left feeling like he has "lost his right arm."
He said: "It's destroyed me. I am in the lowest of places as you can imagine. It's just numbing. I just cannot get my head around it, and I don’t think I've 100% quite processed it." But James says that he must continue to look after his family, saying: "I've got to cope, I've got four kids. I've got no choice. I’ve got to cope."
The cost of the funeral is another thing that is weighing heavily on James' mind, admitting that “it's going to be quite a difficult thing to achieve," as he is relying on the donations from the GoFundMe page due to not being able to work as a result of a spinal injury when he was a builder. He is also a full time-carer for Miley, nine, who has autism.
Aside from the fundraiser, James says that close family have been supporting them, where "her cousin, Daniella, a boxer, is trying to raise some funds – doing 38 rounds, to do so." And after attempting to spend Christmas together as a family, because that "was what Hannah would have wanted," James says that he has organised a meal with close family at the venue the pair were meant to get married at.
After getting engaged on a leap year, February 29 2020, where Hannah proposed to James, the pair were looking to get married at Westmead Hotel in Redditch, Birmingham. Coincidentally, the date chosen for Hannah's memorial is also her birthday, January 7, where James admits that he will attempting to give a speech in front of 20 people.
James has gone on to describe his fiancée as "loud-mouthed and passionate", revealing that she was well-known in her community because she had a small business setting up balloon displays at parties. While her health "made life debilitating and had its issues for her," she put it aside and continued with her business, which James says "became more of a hobby" - right up until her passing.
He added that Hannah "was a fighter until the very end. She was amazing, a fantastic partner and mother. Just brilliant."
A GoFundMe page has been set up by Hannah's neighbour to help the family with financial costs relating to the funeral, where over £2,000 of a £10,000 goal has been raised. You can donate here.
A spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "Firstly, we would like to apologise to the family of Miss Houghton for the delayed response and offer our condolences. Sadly, we are seeing some patients wait a very long time for ambulances to arrive as a result of long hospital handover delays.
"The pressures we are seeing in health and social care means that when our crews arrive at A&E they are unable to handover patients to hospital staff and therefore cannot respond to the next patient in the community. If there are long hospital handover delays, with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital, they are simply unable to responding to the next call, which can impact on the care of the patient in the community.
“We are working incredibly hard with our partners to find new ways to reduce these delays, so that our crews can respond more quickly and save more lives."
I have always wondered what percentage of NHS employees actually see patients in person.
And what percentage of the NHS’s budget goes to people who see patients.
I’ve never been able to find that out.
As much of an anglophile as I am and admirer of the Brits, the way they continue to govern themselves is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. I am not religious.
I work in a community hospital in southern NJ for The Barnabas Health Care System. I” a porter and me and my guys bust our tails keeping the place cleaned and sanitized, I've been a patient in this ER fives times over the years for cardiac issues and I'm alive today because of the care I received. The doctors and nurses in this hospitals work 24/7 providing the best care anywhere. They saved my life a number of times. Some years ago my Canadian daughter-in-laws parents had to come her because her step dad needed a heart bypass. It would have taken six months to get on a waiting list and then eighteen months to wait for the procedure after that. They came here, actually to Scottsdale, AZ where they have a summer home and he got it done in two weeks. And as far as quality, really FRiend, you're making not only a blanket statement but a pretty ignorant one as well.
It was last Tuesday night. One of my employees was their with her husband. Don’t care if you believe it, it happened. Same with my father in Seattle.
Had similar experiences.
They don’t publish the correct time very often. Hell, it wasn’t 55 minutes 12 years ago.
You waited 11 hours to be seen or 11 hours for results to come back?
I’m having a real hard time believing your story.
If it were an invader or a person of color there would be no wait
My coworker waited 11 hours to be seen.
She is back today. Her spouse had a major abscess internally as a complication from a gall bladder surgery.
They were told to wait outside or go home, as the waiting room was full (still is, no matter what the website says). She said there were people laying on the floor. Bad flu/RSV/ whatever outbreak.
The stiches ruptured and the abscess burst at home, which at least meant they got an ambulance ride and in quicker. Her spouse was lucky, in that he ripped out the stiches but didn’t start bleeding to bad before they got him in.
For my father, he had a stroke in Seattle. Mom drove him in, but the triage nurse put him in the back of the line (to be fair this was during covid, and Dad was 75 at the time). He waited 6 hours to get in, which is way to late for a stroke.
Probably wouldn’t have mattered with his prior conditions, but a family friend told them that the ER’s are overwhelmed, and to call the squad if they need to go in. Dad passed six months later, and like I said it probably would have happened one way or another but telling a stroke victim to hobble out and wait is nuts.
Now in NJ, you have more hospitals and a lot more staffing ( I suspect) and a LOT less recent immigrants who use the ER for everything. Locally, it is known that the website wait times are never right. Hell, Urgent care is anywhere from 30 minutes to later in the week. Second and third generation immigrants seem to figure out you don’t go to the ER for a back sprain, but that is the norm in many 3rd world countries. We have a large number of people from Africa, who are not used to any type of medical care other than a hospital.
I understand your system is better. I hope it is. But locally more and more ER’s are closing, and that is causing longer and longer wait times. Nursing staff has been cut post CV19, and it is causing a system break down.
A lot less immigrants? Dude we’re over run with them. Sorry for your familys troubles.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.