Loving dad 'spent six weeks trying to get GP appointment' before receiving terminal diagnosis
07.10.2023 - 02:29
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A heartbroken mum has told of how her son spent six weeks trying to get a GP appointment before he died.
Kevin Gillett was told he could have four months to live after being diagnosed with liver cancer which had also spread to his blood, lungs and lymph nodes. But the 40-year-old died just six weeks later in hospital.
Mum Odette De Freitas said Kevin, from Liverpool, struggled to get an in person doctor's appointment for six weeks and by the time he was seen in early June, he couldn't keep any food down at all. Less than a week after his appointment on June 13, Kevin received a phone call from a nurse who told him to go straight to the Royal Liverpool Hospital where doctors would be waiting for him.
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Odette told the Liverpool Echo: "He had high calcium levels. I knew straight away it's indicative of advanced cancer because I've had it happen to someone I know.
"He'd been feeling quite unwell since having Covid after Christmas but by the end of April, May, he was finding he couldn't eat at all and was vomiting. Six weeks he was trying to get an appointment.
"I feel like he's been badly let down by the whole system. I couldn't knock the nurses. They are amazing. But it's the whole system - they're not seeing people and doing tests before it gets to that stage.
"The staff are trying their best. It's the whole process. I don't know why they're not getting face to face appointments.
"I know there's a backlog after Covid. We just feel that when somebody has a chronic condition anyway that they would monitor it more closely and not do a