A PENSIONER who suffered an epileptic fit while visiting Kidderminster Hospital had to be rushed to Ronkswood Hospital, Worcester, because no doctor was available.

Gerald Smith, 75, of Manor Close, Stourport, was accompanying his wife, Barbara, 54, who was due to see a consultant to discuss the results of a breast cancer scan.

Mrs Smith, who gave up her job as a stewardess at the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, Kidderminster, to look after her husband following a stroke in September, said he had complained of feeling unwell. Gerald and Barbara Smith.

"We were in Stourport and he said he felt all peculiar and shaky and I said I'll phone and cancel the appointment but he said, 'no way, we've got to get the results.'

"He's a very stubborn man and I thought at least I'm going to a hospital; he will be safe there."

But after they arrived at the hospital at 3pm last Thursday, Mr Smith collapsed and lay shaking on the floor.

Mrs Smith described the attention from nurses as "fantastic" but said she was "beside herself" and "hysterical" when she was told by a nurse no doctor was available.

She said she had to leave her car at the hospital and travel with her husband in an ambulance to Ronkswood.

"I kept thinking, 'are we going to make it in time,'" she added.

Mrs Smith, who had a life-saving mastectomy at Kidderminster Hospital four years ago, said she could not believe the hospital had been unable to treat her husband, now safely back at home.

A spokeswoman for the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: "We are sorry to hear of Mrs Smith's concerns and if she would like to write to us with the details we will respond directly."

Dr Richard Taylor, MP for Wyre Forest, said: "There is no doctor available; it's a nurse-run minor injuries unit. When you think we are a population of approximately 135,000 who do not have an emergency department with a doctor, it's a scandal."