A grandad resorted to sleeping on a hospital floor during a 12-hour wait for a trolley.

Martin Wakely’s wife says it is “disgusting” he felt he had no choice but to lie down outside an X-ray room at Medway Maritime Hospital after it became too painful for him to continue sitting on a plastic chair.

Medway NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, has apologised but added it was continuing to see a high number of patients who needed admitting for treatment, and that staff were working tirelessly to provide the best possible care at a “particularly busy time”.

Martin’s long wait for somewhere to lie down came during a 51-hour visit in which the 75-year-old from Bobbing, near Sittingbourne, was treated for pneumonia in one of his lungs.

His wife Tracy, who has been married to the former gun dog trainer for 23 years, criticised the situation at the department, where around seven in 100 patients have to wait more than 12 hours for a bed according to the latest NHS England figures.

The former council property inspector compared the level of care her husband received to that of a “third-world country”.

She called an ambulance on Sunday, October 27 at 11am as Martin had been struggling to breathe.

They arrived at the hospital at midday, at which point the 63-year-old explained to the paramedics that the grandad-of-four was unable to sit down for long periods as he has Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

At home, Martin is cared for by Tracy and is virtually bedbound as a result of his condition.

Despite her plea, they were sent to the A&E waiting room which had nothing but chairs.

While waiting for the results of some blood tests, which were taken at 1pm, Martin struggled to sit and when his back pain became too much, tried laying down across the plastic chairs.

At 6pm a nurse told Martin that he would have to sit up as the seats were needed, Tracy said.

At this point, she asked again how much longer it would be before the results came back but was told he had been wrongfully discharged.

She said: “If I hadn’t been there to ask about it, like some of the other patients who were alone, Martin still might be waiting there now.

“But we were promised to see the next doctor available.”

Around an hour after this they were seen by a doctor, who prescribed antibiotics as Martin had pneumonia in one of his lungs and put him on a nebuliser to help him breathe as he sat inside a cubical.

However, he needed an X-ray so they both returned to the A&E waiting room. Around 8.30pm Tracy again asked for a trolley.

“He was in so much back pain that he was crying,” she said, “but we were told to be patient and wait for one to become available.

“Other patients could see he was in pain and offered their seats so he could lay down, and coats for comfort, and showed a sense of camaraderie.

“Around 11.30pm he could not stand the pain and opted for the floor so I took him to a quiet place outside X-ray and laid his dressing gown down to make him comfortable.

“Half-an-hour later the nurse I had been asking for a trolley came and said she now had one.

“My husband struggled to get up and I struggled to pick him up off the floor.

“I wheeled him to the supposed trolley but a patient was still on it.”

At 12.30am, Martin finally received a bed in the majors’ department but was still in a corridor with no privacy.

At 11am on Tuesday, October 29 - almost 48 hours after he arrived at the hospital - he told Tracy he wanted to go home.

Nurses said they needed the blood results before he could leave, although that would be against their advice.

But by 3pm Martin was “fuming”, Tracy says, and discharged himself.

She said: “They said ‘you'll be back in a couple of days’ but Martin said ‘I won't, I'll be dead first’.

“It was heartbreaking seeing someone I love put through it.

“It's disgusting that he has worked all his life, paid all his taxes, done everything right and he ends up on the floor with the rubbish.

“I've got nothing against the people who were there because they can only work with what they've got but the whole thing is stretched too far.

“I knew the NHS was in a state but until you're actually in that situation or you're there in amongst it you don't realise how bad it is.”

Martin’s experience is not uncommon, with NHS England figures showing that of 8,221 patients who visited Medway Maritime Hospital’s A&E department in September, 636 waited for a bed for more than 12 hours – that’s more than 7%.

Meanwhile, more than one in 10 patients waited more than four hours for a bed – 973.

Tracy said she felt the facilities inside the department were poor.

She added: “There was no privacy, you can’t wash properly or even get changed - you’re in a corridor.

“It was hard for Martin to sleep as there were people constantly passing you. There were lights on and it was very noisy.

“People were asking to have their cannulas taken out as they couldn't stand it anymore.

“There was a man there whose head was bleeding and God knows how long he was there but he was there long before us.

“A lady was sitting in front of us who had been there 11 hours longer than us and she didn't even have a bed but was on a trolley.

“It's like what you imagine a hospital in a third-world country would be like. It is disgusting.”

Tracy says she will be lodging a formal complaint with Medway Maritime Hospital but both she and Martin have been “totally exhausted” by the experience so have yet to do so.

Sarah Vaux, interim chief nursing officer for Medway NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are extremely sorry for Mr Wakely’s experience and for the distress caused to him and his family. As soon as staff were aware Mr Wakely was lying on the floor he was moved on to a trolley for his comfort.

“Our hospital is very busy as we continue to see a high number of patients in our Emergency Department who need admitting for treatment. We are sorry that this means some patients wait longer than we would like and that at times patients may have to be moved to an alternative and safe location where we have a range of measures in place to support them. Our staff are working tirelessly to provide the best possible care for patients at all times.

“We encourage patients who have any concerns about their care to contact us directly so that we can address and learn from the issues raised.”

In this week’s autumn budget, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a £22.6 billion increase in the day-to-day health budget as part of the government’s forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS.

It is hoped the funding boost will help get waiting lists back to a maximum of 18 weeks.

But one leading health think tank, The King’s Fund, warned that the additional funds are “unlikely to be enough for patients to see a real improvement in the care they receive”.