A 101-year-old woman was forced to wait six hours for an ambulance to take her to hospital just a mile away.
The pensioner took ill with breathing problems over the Christmas period while staying with family a mile away from James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.
Despite her suffering from respiratory problems, the family finally decided to cancel the call after the lengthy wait.
The woman was one of two people facing long waits for ambulances over the festive period which have been highlighted by Middlesbrough MP Tom Blenkinsop.
He said the second case saw an 89-year-old lady with dementia wait for 11 hours before being reached in her home, which was about half a mile away from the hospital.
Mr Blenkinsop said: “Unfortunately this is not a new issue and is not just affecting Teesside, it is across the country.
“I have raised it over and over again with the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and he refuses to speak to me.
“Two years ago, a Marton woman waited 12 hours for an ambulance and it still hasn’t changed.
“We are really getting to a point now where the Health Secretary needs to start planning properly, which he has not done to this point and which is why we are in this situation.
“I want people to know that I am just going to keep raising the issue and keep hassling him until he starts doing his job.”
The North East Ambulance Service said it could not comment on these specific cases but its Chief Operating Officer for the North East Ambulance Service, Paul Liversidge, said: “During winter months, the demand for NHS services increases significantly as cold weather means there are more slips, trips and injuries.
“Generally more people feel unwell during the winter as they spend more time indoors and coughs and colds are passed around the family, friends and colleagues at work.
“This all adds up to more of people having an accident or becoming unwell with a winter bug, meaning more people want to see their GP, attend accident and emergency or call 999.
“We are experiencing severe pressures in responding to emergency calls and with additional pressures across the wider NHS network causing delays in ambulance turnaround times at hospitals.
“Patients do sometimes experience a longer than normal delay and for that we apologise.
“At times of heavy demand, our resources must concentrate on the most serious, life-threatening cases, meaning that our response to some other patients is longer than we would like.”
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