Patient dying of undiagnosed cancer left on a hospital floor for hours

Patient dying of undiagnosed cancer and sepsis was left writhing in agony on a hospital floor for two hours because there was no room for him on a ward

• Michael Wiper, 56, was in so much abdominal pain that he could not sit down  

A patient dying of undiagnosed cancer and sepsis was left writhing in agony on the floor of a busy hospital waiting room for nearly two hours because no room could be found for him on a ward.

Michael Wiper, 56, was in so much abdominal pain he could not sit and was forced to lie down, initially in the waiting area then an adjoining foyer at an A&E department.

After a wait of an hour and 50 minutes, retired shipbuilder Mr Wiper was finally given a cubicle but he was not operated on for another ten hours.

His wife Christine told an inquest how she repeatedly begged a nurse to help find him a trolley because she had never seen him in such distress.

Mrs Wiper, 61, described her husband’s treatment at Furness Hospital in Cumbria as ‘humiliating’, recalling how people stepped over him as he lay without any dignity.

Michael Wiper, 56, was in so much abdominal pain he could not sit and was forced to lie down, initially in the waiting area then an adjoining foyer at an A&E department

She told the inquest in Cockermouth: ‘I could not believe no one was acknowledging his level of pain. There wasn’t one kind word of reassurance from anyone, and it breaks my heart that these were his last hours of consciousness.’

The coroner said a delay in him being taken into the operating theatre was ‘more likely than not’ to have contributed to his death. When she first spoke to the A&E nurse at the unit, Mrs Wiper said: ‘I was panicking and telling her ‘He’s really poorly, he needs to lie down’.

‘Another nurse put her head around the door and started shouting: ‘There are no beds anywhere in the hospital’.

‘She then gestured towards the waiting area and said, in a loud and severe tone, ‘They’re all ill and have been waiting four or five hours, they have priority!’

Mr Wiper was given the painkiller co-codamol but immediately had to lie down on the floor again. His wife, who knelt down beside her husband of 35 years, added: ‘I looked up at the nurse and she was smirking, she pulled a face which suggested she thought he was being dramatic.’

Mrs Wiper, 61, described her husband’s treatment at Furness Hospital in Cumbria as ‘humiliating’, recalling how people stepped over him as he lay without any dignity

The Wipers, from Barrow-in-Furness, arrived at the hospital at 6.49pm on September 23 last year.

But surgery could not go ahead until 6.13am the next day because someone else was being operated on in the meantime.

The hospital has apologised for the delays in treatment and says it has tightened up procedures.

Although he ruled out negligence, coroner Dr Nicholas Shaw recorded a verdict of death due to disease contributed in part to delays in treatment.

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