A MUM was left screaming in agony in A&E for 14 hours straight and has been left housebound by an undiagnosed condition.

Sadie Slattery, 41, from Torquay, Devon, now faces having to pay for expensive private healthcare in a desperate bid to find out what is causing her unbearable pain.

4

4

Half of her once strong and fit body has been suffering from intolerable muscle spasms since last March but the mum is still stuck on a lengthy NHS waiting list.

Housebound, she is still waiting for a diagnosis and has yet to be seen by the pain management team as she is on a 16-month wait list.

This week, Sadie claimed she was left in “screaming agony” without medication after an error with her prescription.

Her 11-month ordeal has seen her admitted to A&E at Torbay Hospital on average once a month, with wait times allegedly stretching from seven hours to a shocking 14-and-a-half.

The mum claimed she was also left on the floor on one occasion which caused her horrendous bruising, carpet burns, and sores to her skin.

She was last admitted to hospital two weeks ago, for 10 days, and she says she was left in a waiting room on a mattress for nearly nine hours while waiting to be discharged.

Sadie claims this was because her bed was needed by another patient.

Her 12-year-old son, who has ADHD, has not seen Sadie for months as she worries the state she is in would trigger him.

The mum now relies on carers, who visit twice a day, as she is unable to bathe or feed herself and she cannot sit up or walk for more than 10 steps.

Sadie’s supportive family and friends have launched a GoFundMe page to try and pay for private medical care in the hope she may finally get answers to her painful problems.

The 41-year-old, who loved to do kickboxing in her spare time, is now a shadow of her former self and no longer works at Torquay pub The Castle nor its sister-pub JD’s Bar.

Her fundraiser has raised more than £4,100 so far and has already helped the mum see a neurology specialist at a private hospital, Exeter Medical, who believes her condition could be dystonia.

Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder which causes involuntary muscle spasms and contractions.

Sadie’s friend Claire Birch, who set up the fundraiser, said that dystonia had been suggested as a cause by her chiropractor two months ago but that her NHS consultant “didn’t want to know.”

She explained how Sadie had been passed across countless departments, each one with its own “massive” waiting list, with her having to wait up to 12 months sometimes to be seen.

Claire explained that sometimes at the end of this wait, Sadie would be told her case is not for them and then she would be put on yet another list.

‘NEVER-ENDING CYCLE’ OF PAIN

The mum has already had to fork out £550 for two 30 minute appointments at Mount Gould Hospital in Plymouth, Claire said.

Sadie’s friend said they cannot afford to be waiting another 12 months just to be told they can’t be helped.

Claire said the plan is to now book an appointment with a dystonia expert in Bristol and to try some new medication.

She added: “Sadie is begging for her her arm to be chopped off at the moment as she is in so much pain with it.”

“It’s a never-ending cycle because she is discharged from hospital on a lot less meds and then she is in unbearable agony and is told to go back to A&E if the pain gets too bad.”

Claire also said how Sadie’s muscle spasms have spread to her back and that the worst pain is in her arm, where the problem began.

Sadie’s first appointment to see the pain team will be in July, 16 months since her ordeal began.

Claire explained in the fundraiser: “In March 2024, Sadie started with a pain in her arm which felt like she had sleep funny.

“This has now progressed and her arm muscles continually spasming, her hand is locked in a “claw like” position.

“The pain and spasms have also spread to her back and she is stuck in a very painful unnatural posture.”

Despite being admitted to hospital numerous times, it is claimed doctors have only been able to say that a signal in her brain is causing it.

Sadie has had both CT and MRI scans which were done under general anaesthetic as she could not keep still enough due to her spasms.

Claire told the Daily Mail how awful Sadie’s health has become, saying her muscles now appear stone-like in her neck.

She described how the 41-year-old mum looks “possessed” and how one person thought she was a mental health patients because of how she was screaming in pain, crawling around on her hands and knees.

To donate to the fundraiser, please click here.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust has been approached for comment.

It comes as almost 14,000 deaths were linked to long waits for hospital care in 2023, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM).

RCEM also fears figures for last year could be even worse as thousands of patients waited in “trolleys, cupboards and chairs” for more than 12 hours at a time.

New figures show record numbers of people in England waited more than 12 hours in A&E before receiving care last month.

The record-breaking delays came as hospitals grappled with a tide of winter illnesses, including flu and norovirus.

Experts blamed a “logjam” of patients who hadn’t been discharged despite being deemed fit enough, meaning beds can’t be freed fast enough for incoming patients.

They called on the Government to address issues in social care to tackle the “catastrophic” situation – amid warnings that delayed discharges overwhelm emergency departments and strain the “already overburdened” NHS.

NHS England figures for January show a record 61,529 people waited more than 12 hours in A&E departments to be admitted – up from 54,207 in December.

This surpasses the previous record of 54,573 patients in December 2022.

The number of people waiting at least four hours also rose to 159,582 in January, up from 154,689 in December.

4