Autistic boy who was knocked down waited an hour for ambulance

A YOUNG autistic boy from Clogher was left lying on the road for over an hour in a storm after being knocked down, a meeting on the future of services at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) has heard.

The family of Jayden Dempsey (11) believe the reason he suffered in cold and in pain for so long was due to the pressure the ambulance service is now under as a result of the extra demand of transferring patients requiring emergency surgery from the SWAH to Altnagelvin, due to the removal of emergency general surgery (EGS) from the Enniskillen hospital.

Brave Jayden raised his own story at a meeting between the public and local politicians, organised by Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) in Enniskillen last week.

He was knocked down while going to school during Storm Babet at the end of October.

“I’ve autism and I got knocked down and I had to wait hours for an ambulance, and then I had to move hospitals,” Jayden, who was accompanied by parents Ciara and Alex, told the meeting.

“I was really scared while waiting.”

While Jayden was too nervous to continue telling his story, speaking to the Herald the next day, Ciara said her son had chipped his ankle in the accident, with his packed school bag protecting him from even worse injuries.

After waiting for over an hour in the middle of the storm, Jayden was taken to the SWAH, but had to be transferred to Altnagelvin. The family had to wait three more hours for the transfer, and when they reached Altnagelvin, Jayden was not given the private room he had been promised for his autism.

“He said to the doctor in SWAH, ‘can I not just stay here, I don’t want to go anywhere else, I want to stay here’,” said Ciara.

Ciara said she wanted people to realise it was not just the elderly who were being impacted by the cuts to SWAH services, and urged the powers-that-be at the Trust to “put themselves in our situation to understand.”

Urging the Trust to stop denying everyone’s stories and instead listen, she said, “They are humans too, we’re bound to be able to get through to them some way.

“I just feel that maybe because they’re not in this situation they’re not seeing it as bad as we’re seeing it is. They think we’re kicking up a fuss over nothing.”