A former English teacher with type 1 diabetes has hit out at his doctor’s surgery, claiming they did not react quickly enough when his sugar level monitor broke and he suffered a “hypo”.
John McHugh was on his way to Perth to visit friends when his blood sugar level dropped.
“My machine that tells me my sugar levels packed up and I took a massive hypo,” he said. “This elderly woman who’s an ex-GP came up and gave me sugar out of my pocket.”
Mr McHugh immediately returned home to Barnhill and rang Grove Health Centre in Broughty Ferry, hoping to borrow a replacement for his One Touch Ultra machine until the company that makes them could send him a new one.
He was told the nurse would ring him back but by 4pm the following day he still had not had a call.
“I rang around 4pm and they said they never had the message,” he said.
“I was sitting at home not well at all without any way to find out what my sugar level was. It was an urgent message.”
Mr McHugh, who lives on his own, has been treated in hospital around 17 times before for kidney failure symptoms related to his diabetes and was frightened of having to make another emergency dash to Ninewells.
He said: “I was sitting hoping against hope that I didn’t have to ring them up. If I go really hypo I can feel it coming and I will take sugar but I didn’t know what my sugar levels were sitting at.”
Mr McHugh was first diagnosed with diabetes around 10 years ago. When he rang the surgery to complain he said he was told it was “one of those things” and was offered a doctor to come and see him at the house.
He was unhappy with the response, adding: “You can’t do this sort of thing. If it hadn’t been for that retired doctor I don’t know what would have happened.”
A practice representative said: “We can’t comment on individual cases but we will be liaising with the patient.”