A Powys woman has been left horrified at a long wait for treatment for a suspected epileptic fit left her stranded in a Powys village.

Alicja Wojtowicz, 46, works as a IT Lecturer in Newtown after studying and working in the UK for the last 22 years. She was working at around 4pm at a student open day last month when she suffered a seizure – the first of her life.

And she has now been left to wait for a consultation about the incident, and even though it is recommended that suspected epileptic patients should be seen in person within two weeks, she must wait until September for a phone appointment.

“I went to chat to my colleague to her office and that’s when the seizure happened," she said. "I don’t remember anything.

"My colleague said I was just acting very weirdly and strange and then basically collapsed into seizure.

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“Luckily it happened in her office otherwise I would have been on my own in my classroom because the students were gone already, and lucky for us there was a first aider who was training other people so he was able to assist and put me in the recovery position while waiting for the ambulance.”

The ambulance was a single crew vehicle and was unable to take her to hospital in Shrewsbury as someone would need to accompany her in the back in case of further seizures.

County Times: The injuries Alicja suffered in the incident.The injuries Alicja suffered in the incident.

She was told she could wait for an ambulance or her partner could take her to the hospital – and was told that the wait for another ambulance could be up to eight hours.

Alicja’s partner then drove her over an hour away to Shrewsbury hospital where they found a ambulances queuing to discharge people into hospital.

"I think we arrived at around 6pm. I was waiting for hours, I was exhausted, confused, not knowing what is happening," she added.

"Sometime during the night I was taken for a CT scan and blood tests.

“Around 4am, I had already been there all night with my partner, I was taken to a consultant and I was told: we will give you a bed, we want to do EEG scans to see whether you have epilepsy or not.

“I was so tired I was sitting probably for another hour or so. I honestly just cried and I laid down on the floor because I was so tired.”

At 11am Alicja, who lives near Adfa, was informed there was no bed for her and was sent home without having had her scan.

According to the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence referrals should be made “within two weeks for an assessment after a first suspected seizure”.

Now nearly a month later Alicja has been given an over-the-phone appointment with a consultant in September – three months after her seizure.

She added: “I spoke to a secretary of the consultant, and she said to me 'the doctor will establish whether you have epilepsy by asking very smart questions'.

"I said to her 'I have no doubt they know their stuff but this is like taking a quiz online. This is a joke'.”

“This is what really left me feeling hopeless. My life is put on hold. I cannot drive. Where I live, the bus goes through the village once a week. I cannot drive to work, I cannot do my shopping, I cannot take my son to his swimming lessons.”

Hayley Flavell, director of Nursing at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: “Whilst we are unable to comment on individual cases, we always endeavour to provide the highest possible standard of care.

"Where we may not have lived up to this, we have comprehensive and rigorous processes in place, and if the patient would like to contact us, we would be keen to understand and learn from her experience.”