A Tandragee councillor and businessman has spoken out after a recent health scare left him waiting for an A&E appointment for 26 hours.
Keith Ratcliffe, a representative for the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) in the Cusher area, was speaking to Armagh I after he was rushed to hospital at the start of this week, with the fear that he may have suffered a mini-stroke.
Thankfully, Keith’s condition turned out to be much less serious, and he has taken the opportunity to thank the stroke clinic for their “fantastic” service.
However, he described the A&E wait times as “horrendous” and “not fit for purpose”.
After attending the stroke clinic, it was confirmed that he had instead experienced Transient Aphasia, caused by a swelling on the left side of the brain.
At 50-years-old, Keith says he was fit and healthy and goes to the gym around four times a week. However, he admits that life can “change at the flip of a coin”.
He discovered something was wrong last Friday, the day before he was due to take part in a charity ‘Ride to the North Pole’ cycle in Hunter’s Supermarket in aid of the Children’s Cancer Unit.
Explained Keith: “I went to the gym on Friday morning as I normally do before work and I did an hour’s training, went into work and was doing a bit of work in the yard before going to lift a car.
“I lifted another colleague and brought him up the road to get this vehicle and when I started talking to him, with no warning at all, my speech started going. I knew what I wanted to say but it wouldn’t come out. It was all over the place and really erratic and mumbled.”
When they returned to the office, Keith’s colleagues suspected that something was “badly wrong” and contacted the doctor’s clinic in Gilford, who feared that he was having a stroke and advised he be rushed to hospital.
Keith arrived in hospital at 2.30pm on Friday and his bloods were taken straight away for fear he was having a stroke.
“I got my bloods done and they said it would take a couple of hours to get them back, so I sat and waited. I didn’t feel well and it was all fuzzy. My speech had started coming back but it just wasn’t 100%. I had a sore head so I was concerned to be honest.
“That was half two on Friday afternoon. It came to three in the morning – that was 13 hours I was sitting – and I went to the desk and said ‘what’s going on because I’ve had a suspected stroke and I haven’t been seen?’.
“A junior doctor told me there was only one full-time doctor there for emergencies and he said it was still going to be a few hours.”
By the time Keith was seen it was 4.30pm on Saturday – 26 hours after he initially arrived in the hospital.
“They did the CT scan and checked everything and said they suspected I’d had a mini-stroke as there were all the symptoms.
“At that stage I just wanted to go home because I was knackered. I got out of the hospital at half six on Saturday night and they told me someone would get in touch from the stroke clinic.
“The stroke clinic was absolutely fantastic. They phoned me on Monday morning at 9.30 and they booked me to see a stroke specialist doctor for half nine on Tuesday. When I went, they sat me down and said ‘Keith, we believe you’ve had a stroke but you need to get an MRI done to confirm it’.
“I got the MRI and came back. Lo and behold, I didn’t have a stroke after all – it was Transient Aphasia. I had a swelling on the left side of my brain which put pressure on that lobe; that then resulted in me losing my speech for an hour and a half. What happens is you can lose your eyesight or the power of your limbs, the same symptoms as a stroke.”
Thankfully, Keith says the symptoms can clear within a week or up to a month: “I’m starting to come around from yesterday, but up to that I had a real sore head and fuzziness.”
While he has described the stroke clinic as “fantastic”, he says the A&E was “falling to pieces”.
He continued: “There were a number of patients I had been talking to through the night who actually got fed up and went home because they’d been waiting so long.
“It was very, very scary because everybody, even the doctors, thought that I was having a stroke. The stroke clinic, I couldn’t praise them highly enough, but the A&E was just falling to pieces. It’s not fit for purpose. For anybody with something majorly wrong with them I believe lives are at risk. Our health service just isn’t fit to cope.
“Nobody should have to wait 26 hours to be seen. It’s not good enough. At least 100 people were sitting in casualty. It’s very challenging for the staff.
“I know they’re extremely busy, and it wasn’t the staff’s fault, but a whole lot of people came in under the influence of drink and were getting preferential treatment.”
Keith adds that he has been “overwhelmed” by the support shown from family, friends and colleagues.
He said: “My wife and family and friends have been fantastic. Council colleagues from right across the political divide have all been in touch and people have been so, so good.
“Everybody is busy at this time of year with Christmas but people have been fantastic. I really do appreciate the number of messages. It’s just overwhelming.”
Added Keith: “It was just a shock to me because, while I might be 50, I’ve done numerous charity events all through my life. I’ve done parachute jumps, I’ve done boxing matches, I’ve done Ben Nevis, and I’ve kept myself very fit.
“I go to the gym four or five times a week and that’s why it came as so much of a shock to me. Everything was pointing to a stroke and I just couldn’t believe that. It shows so quickly the way your life could change.
“If it had of been a stroke I could have been left paralysed. You just see how people’s lives can be changed really at the toss of a coin.”
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