The Mancunian Way: Stubbed toes in A&E
21.07.2022 - 13:17
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
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Here is today's Mancunian Way:
by BETH ABBIT - Wed July 20, 2022
Hello,
So how did everyone manage overnight? It was a bit cooler, but not much. Thankfully there was a very minor breeze when I opened the door this morning. Very minor. Like a garden gnome blowing a gentle raspberry.
Anyway, on to the news. We’ll be looking at the pressure on ambulance crews, the latest strike action affecting Greater Manchester and that long hot summer of 1976, in today's newsletter.
Paramedics are warning that ambulances are being treated like ‘extra wards’ as patients are left outside hospital for up to three hours. Meanwhile, patients are waiting hours from the time they call 999 to paramedics actually reaching them - if they manage to get there at all.
When patients reach hospital, handovers to hospital medics are taking up to three hours as hospitals are full, health reporter Helena Vesty writes. She has spoken to medics who claim waiting times to see a doctor can vary from between two and eight hours.
"From a handover point of view, it's very, very difficult sometimes because the A&E departments are full,” one paramedic told Helena. “We'll have staff who will turn up at a hospital and they might be there for two or three hours.” They add: “You can’t leave your patient because we want to make sure our patient is OK. We end up being used as an extra ward sometimes.”
One junior doctor says extra strains such as heat and Covid have a ‘snowballing effect’ on waiting times. “There is a lot of talk about heat as it is topical, but in a