My wife was dying while drunks clogged up hospital's A&E

A widower whose severely ill wife waited for more than five hours to be seen at an emergency department says medics gave priority to drunk revellers "clogging up" A&E.

Andrew Martin's wife Laura, 39, was taken to Queen's Hospital in Romford at 3am because she was suffering headaches and vomiting.

He says the mother-of-two was not seen until 8.30am. A doctor checked over Mrs Martin and she was sent home, but three hours later she became critically ill with an undiagnosed lung condition and was taken back to hospital. She died the next day.

Mr Martin, from Rush Green, near Romford, said: "The A&E was overrun. Because it was the weekend everyone came in from a drinking night. There were three people in the queue in front of us and they just left after three hours. You should get some priority if you are seriously ill."

He added: "I saw one lady brought in by two friends who was slumped over her chair, but after a while she seemed to get better and they went out to call a cab without even seeing a doctor."

Mrs Martin, who had two children, Abbie, nine, and Jamie, six, first fell ill in the early hours of December 12. She waited for two hours to be seen for a second time, and died of lung failure despite being put in a chemical coma to bring down her heart rate.

Her husband has now called for a nearby A&E department at the King George hospital in Goodmayes not to be closed because it would put extra strain on Queen's.

Deborah Wheeler, acting chief executive of the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We will certainly look into Mr Martin's complaint to see if anything could have been done differently."