Patient had to spend six days on a trolley

The 41 year-old NVQ assessor was rushed to hospital from her home in Lyneham with acute pain in her kidneys and gall bladder and difficulty breathing last Wednesday.

In spite of a letter from her consultant ordering fast-track tests for her, Mrs Rogers still had not a single test by Friday, and had spent 48 hours on a trolley pushed to the side of a ward.

Late Friday afternoon she was told she may as well go home because no-one would be able to do the tests until Monday.

When Mrs Rogers went back to the hospital on Monday there still wasn't a bed available, so staff pushed a trolley into the corner of a four-bed ward.

Her husband Chris, a sergeant in the RAF, had made several complaints about Mrs Roger's plight.

But it wasn't until yesterday, an hour after the Gazette made a call to the hospital, that she was told a bed was available.

Mrs Rogers was still waiting for a CAT scan at the time of going to print.

Sgt Rogers was on tour in Bosnia with the RAF but had to be flown back to care for his sick wife and their 15- year-old son last week.

He said yesterday morning: "It's appalling, June was in terrible pain and actually passed out once, and yet everyone seemed to just forget about her.

"She has been in this tiny narrow little trolley for three days now.

"It is tucked in next to the basin and the bins for clinical waste and sharps, so she has nurses leaning over her all the time to throw rubbish and sharps away.

"The trolley is about two feet wide with a tiny thin mattress so she can never get comfortable enough to sleep, and it is so high that she can't get out of it by herself."

When she wanted to get out of bed, Mrs Rogers had to balance onto a wheeled stool and jump down to the ground.

Sgt Rogers said: "There was no call button, so if she had another attack she had no way of letting anyone know.

"When she was in pain last night and needing the toilet she had to wait until a nurse came on the ward to deal with someone else before she could attract her attention. They gave her a little handbell, but it was on a windowsill about four feet away and she couldn't reach it."

Mrs Rogers did not have a bedside locker for her things and or even a table for her meals.

Sgt Rogers said: "When she had something to eat she had to sit in a chair and they pushed another chair in front of her for her food, and even as she ate people were leaning across her to get to the bins."

Mrs Rogers has had ongoing problems with cysts around her kidney and gall bladder, and has a history of suffering attacks of intense debilitating pain that causes her to collapse.

She was one of the last patients to be admitted to the Princess Margaret Hospital, where she spent 14 hours on a trolley.

Sgt Rogers said: "The old hospital was packing up when we were there, so we assumed that was why it took so long to find her a bed, but there is no excuse this time."

When they asked if she could be found a bed, the Rogers were told it was against health and safety regulations to have five beds on a four bed ward, but that having four beds and a trolley on a four bed ward was fine.

They were also told that the radiology department had not received any instructions about tests for Mrs Rogers, and were never told to fast-track her through.

Hospital spokesman Chris Birdsall said yesterday: "We have had an exceptionally busy weekend with a lot of very sick people being admitted.

"Our policy is not to close and we will always admit people if they need it. We believe it is better to have people in the right environment being cared for on a trolley than it is to close and refuse to admit people.

"We would prefer not to have any patients on trolleys if it all possible, but sometimes it is unavoidable if we are to admit everyone who needs it."

Having spent almost six days on a hospital trolley, broken by her return home for the weekend, Mrs Rogers has beaten the record for the number of hours spent on a hospital trolley, previously held by diabetic Tony Collins, of Calne.

Mr Collins spent 77 and a half hours on a trolley at the Princess Margaret Hospital in February 2001.

He then spent a further 60 hours on a trolley when he was admitted to the Great Western Hospital after being struck down by a virus in January 2003.

Sgt Rogers said: "I'll tell my wife that she is the new record holder, I'm sure it will make her feel a lot better."

l Despite Swindon PCT's claims the Great Western Hospital would give 19 per cent extra clinical space, the hospital has faced a chronic bed shortage since it opened in December 2002.

The Intermediate Care Centre, opened in June 2003, is intended to alleviate problems with bed blocking caused by recuperating patients.

Building work has just started on the hospital's new Diagnostic Treatment Centre, which it is hoped will take routine elective surgery cases off wards in the main hospital to leave more room for emergency patients such as Mrs Rogers.