Can our hospital really cope?

Here, in her own words, she describes her ordeal and gives a damning indictment of the state of our National Health Service.

I am a diabetic and have been suffering from chest pains and breathlessness for some time.

The doctors suspected it might be a pulmonary embolism which is a serious condition which I've had before but they're not sure what I've got now.

I was admitted a fortnight ago but the tests didn't show anything and I'm still suffering, so I was sent back to hospital by my GP on Monday.

I was admitted at 7pm to the Martin Sell Ward, which is a medical assessment unit.

I went straight into a four-bed ward with three elderly men, which wasn't very discreet, but I did have a very comfortable bed.

I was then told yesterday morning at 10am that the bed was needed for another patient, which was fine and I accepted that.

I was told a bed would be made available in a female section of Yatesbury Ward once another patient was discharged.

As far as I know, that patient was discharged, but then I was told they had emergencies and they needed that bed. So I was moved to this room at 10.30am and it looks like I could be spending a few days here.

It's claustrophobic, boiling hot, I'm right next to the staff and patients' loos and I'm not at all comfortable. I'm sitting on a plastic chair with my legs propped on another plastic chair diagonally across a room which can't be much bigger than 8ft x 8ft.

There's a bookcase opposite me full of medical textbooks and there's a whole load of medical equipment, boxes and papers on a shelf above my head.

The carpet is stained and filthy and I have no bed or bedside table it is all very depressing. But the nurses have been incredible and are doing a brilliant job under almost impossible circumstances.

You don't have to ask them to see that their morale is low and they are all under pressure.

It is the management who are at fault Sonia Mills (Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust chief executive) keeps insisting 'we're coping, we're coping', but this proves that they are blatantly not coping and things can only get worse over the winter.

She said they'd be discharging patients as fast as new cases come in, but I find such comments far less reassuring now, having spent two days in here.

I feel extremely concerned about what this winter is going to bring for the people of this area, because if my experience is anything to go by, the signs are not good at all.

You don't expect to have to spend the night on a mattress on the floor of a nurse's office in a British hospital in the year 2000 when we should have a right to expect a well-resourced NHS.

And can we really believe, as they keep telling us, when the new hospital is built at Commonhead with even fewer beds, that they are going to be able to cope there?

Staff at Princess Margaret Hospital cannot promise they will cope this winter. At one point this week 11 people were waiting for a bed and the very cold weather has not yet set in, writes Helen Moss.

Spokesman Chris Birdsall said: "Hopefully we can tackle the winter pressures but we would be foolish to say we are not going to have any problems.

"If there is an outbreak of flu where a huge number of people become very ill or a prolonged cold snap where lots of people fall over and get hurt, we will find it difficult."

He said last winter never seemed to finish in terms of high patient numbers, and the hospital had been incredibly busy all year round.

Commenting about Shirley Mathias's experiences, he said: "We are deeply sorry that anyone has to spend any amount of time on a mattress or chair and that is not the way we like to do things.

"Unfortunately we have had a lot of very ill people coming into the hospital during the past few weeks and we have accommodated patients as best we can.

"It is far from ideal to have patients on trolleys or mattresses but we are doing everything we can with the resources and staff we have."

He said the hospital had been working with other agencies such as the local health authority throughout the year, on a package of measures to ease winter pressures. These will be announced in detail shortly.

Shirley's problems at PMH came on the day that a new eight-bed unit was opened as part of the bid to ease anticipated bed-shortages during winter. It was created to lower the risk of people having routine operations cancelled because of a lack of beds.

The new Wanborough Elective Medical Unit was set up in the wake of problems at PMH last winter when the hospital was hit by an outbreak of flu.

At the end of December there were no empty intensive care beds and when one did become free it was filled by a patient from another part of the country. All non-urgent surgery was cancelled and daily admissions rose by a third in January.

The new ward, equipped with £5,000 worth of equipment, replaces the former Haemotology and Oncology day unit, which has been moved to a temporary building on the PMH site.

Further measures to cope with the winter influx will be announced by the hospital soon.