Mum ‘traumatised’ after 999 advice to give sick son painkillers

The mother of a Belfast man who collapsed outside a hospital after being rushed there by his parents said she was shocked when a 999 call handler told her he should take painkillers as they would have to wait hours for an ambulance.

Brian Rooney, 35, suffered a heart attack outside the Royal Victoria Hospital’s emergency department after his bowel had perforated at home.

He is now in an induced coma.

His mother Isobel Benson called 999 after her son felt an “explosion” in his chest and was “screaming in agony”.

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) apologised to Mr Rooney and his family “for not meeting their expectations in terms of the care provided to him”.

It said it is “unable to comment publicly on the detail of individual cases” but would “welcome the opportunity to discuss, directly with the family, the issues raised”.

Mr Rooney is in a critical but stable condition.

He underwent emergency surgery, which resulted in the removal of his intestine.

Ms Benson told BBC News NI that her son has epilepsy, colitis and gout, and had recently been in and out of hospital.

She added that he had also lost a lot of weight as he had not been eating.

The incident began in the early hours of Sunday evening, when Ms Benson heard “an almighty scream” coming from her son’s attic room.

“He says I feel as if something has exploded in my chest and I feel like I’m going to die,” she said.

A hospital consultant later told her the perforated bowel meant the organ had “effectively exploded and the whole contents of his bowel would have been emptied throughout his body”.

After seeing “the panic setting over his face”, she phoned for an ambulance.

Ms Benson said she explained her son’s medical history and told the call handler he was hyperventilating, in agony and could not move.

After confirming he was breathing, lucid and could talk, she was told it would be a couple of hours before an ambulance could get to him due to ongoing pressures on the health service.

When Ms Benson responded that she needed an ambulance now, the call handler asked if she could take her son to hospital herself.

She said she could not because she had a two-door car, which would be extremely difficult for Mr Rooney to travel in given his level of pain, and her son’s father could not drive at night because of his own health issues.

Ms Benson was told she would have to wait until the early hours of the morning and to just give him painkillers.

“I was really traumatised after that call. It just beggared belief.

“My understanding of what a priority call is – if you have severe chest pains, you’re prioritized, that’s an emergency.

“But in this case, because he was coming across lucid, that it wasn’t deemed an emergency, and that was the end of that and it wasn’t up for discussion,” she said.

Ms Benson said her son started foaming at the mouth and coughing up blood, so she decided to try to bring him to hospital herself.

“I had to manhandle Brian downstairs. I felt awful.

“He was in agony and screaming at every move and turn of the stair,” she said.

She got him down two flights of stairs and into her car, which she said was tiny, and “tried to make him as comfortable as possible” before driving to the hospital.

At the doors of the emergency department, her son collapsed.

She said security staff and then medical staff came out and “cut his shirt up and started to give him CPR because his heart had stopped”.

Ms Benson said the consultant in the ED told her if they had not made it to the hospital when they did, “we would be dealing with a corpse now”.

Ms Benson said it was a shocking and upsetting ordeal.

“Never in this day, like in this modern age, would I have ever envisioned having to do that.”

She said she understood the pressures on the health service, but never thought, given her son’s medical history, that they would not “deem him an emergency”.

“They could have very well cost him his life.

“They did say the ambulances that they did have, they couldn’t leave the individuals that they were with, and one wouldn’t be available for a few hours.

“That to me is communicating that we don’t deem you an emergency.”

One of Mr Rooney’s sisters, Roisin Wilshaw, who lives in England, told BBC News NI she faced a difficult journey back to Northern Ireland after receiving a phone call from her mother in the middle of the night.

She booked a flight but it was cancelled due to bad weather, causing her stress as she worried about whether she would make it home in time to see her brother if the worst happened.

“I was just numb, when I first realised that my flight was cancelled, my heart just broke.” She got home 12 hours later.

Ms Benson said her son now faces an uncertain recovery.

As his intestine was removed during surgery, he will now use a stoma to collect waste.

“We have been told, even if Brian gets over this stage, the road ahead is not going to be plain sailing – his life has changed.

“There’s still complications to be considered like infections. All the rehab he’s going to need because of this.

“All these things that perhaps, we don’t know, could have been avoided if an ambulance had of come out in time when I rang.”