A 39-year-old woman from Kirkcaldy, Fife in Scotland has died from a heart attack, after being sent home from hospital and told to take painkillers.

Debra Beavers visited Victoria Hospital with chest pains on Sunday, 26 July after an appointment was made following two calls to NHS 24. Initially she suffered numbness, swelling and leg pain and then developed chest pains, according to a report in the Daily Record newspaper.

Ms Beavers’ sister Darlene McConnell said Ms Beavers went to hospital at 1pm as arranged, but after a few minutes a doctor told her to return home and take ibuprofen. He advised her she had probably ‘racked her chest while coughing’, said Ms McConnell – who also said the doctor was rude to her sister and told her that her heart was ‘on the other side’ when she clutched her chest.

Ms Beavers went from hospital to a relative’s house and lay in pain on the sofa until 8pm, when she suffered a seizure.

That morning she had told her sister that the pains were so bad she thought she was ‘going to die’.

A spokesman for NHS Fife said:

‘We would like to express our condolences. NHS Fife's duty to uphold patient confidentiality prevents us from making any comment on an individual case.’

Ms Beavers’ family are now planning to make a formal complaint about her treatment at the hospital – they believe she might still be alive if the hospital had not been ‘so dismissive’.

© 5r1 Limited

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