Ryarsh parish councillor missed hospital appointment due to queues at petrol station on A20
11:31, 29 September 2021
updated: 14:34, 29 September 2021
A woman missed her hospital appointment after a 20-minute journey took more than an hour and a half thanks to queues caused by fuel panic-buying.
Ryarsh Parish Council chairman Mary McKinlay left Ryarsh just after 8am to get to Maidstone Hospital for a 9.30am appointment on Friday, which her GP had first requested in March.
However, thanks to long queues caused by people panic-buying fuel, she was more than 15 minutes late and the consultant would not see her.
Although the appointment was at Maidstone Hospital, Medway Hospital runs the service she was using.
Cllr McKinlay, 78, said: "The traffic was horrendous. The A20 has got lots of petrol stations all of the way down, it was just queues everywhere.
Once Cllr McKinlay arrived at the hospital, she found she couldn't go straight into the car park due to a sinkhole which opened in April, and had to drive round the back of the facility to access parking, where she encountered more traffic.
"I left just after 8am, the journey usually takes me about 20 minutes, it took over an hour," she added.
However, when she arrived a nurse explained the surgeon does not see anyone who is more than 15 minutes late.
Cllr McKinlay explained she was late because of the terrible traffic but the surgeon still wasn't able to see her.
"I just think it's very unfair, I am angry about it. It wasted my time," she said.
The 78-year-old said she was supposed to go to a funeral for a colleague on Friday, but missed it as she had "waited so long for this appointment".
Gurjit Mahil, deputy chief executive at Medway NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We will rebook Mrs McKinlay’s appointment for as soon as possible.
“Unfortunately the clinic she had her appointment for was fully booked on the day, and our consultant had to leave promptly to tend to other patients.
"Regrettably, that meant we were not able to rearrange her appointment for that day.”
Friday saw long queues form as a lorry driver shortage caused some service stations to run out of petrol, causing people to panic buy fuel.
The congestion around petrol stations continued into the weekend and this week, with more stations running out of fuel and some giving priority to emergency workers.
