A MAN whose mother died after waiting for an ambulance for 41 minutes yesterday handed AMs a petition calling for better ambulance services for Monmouth.

Mathew Davies handed the 400-name petition to the National Assembly for Wales’ petitions committee.

His mother Jacqueline Davies died on January 20 last year after collapsing at home nine days earlier – but a coroner said ambulance service delays may have contributed to her death.

Mr Davies, 27, said: “Monmouth needs and deserves a dedicated ambulance to protect the community.

“I do not wish to see the pain suffered by my family repeated.”

The petition calls for the Assembly’s Health and Social Committee to undertake a scrutiny inquiry into the ambulance service in rural Wales, and for the Welsh Ambulance Service to improve services in Monmouth.

An inquest heard last year that Ms Davies, 49, from Monmouth, began experiencing breathing difficulties at 5.20pm on January 11.

Despite a 999 call at 5.35pm, it was not until 6.17pm that a rapid response vehicle arrived and asked for an ambulance from Ross-on-Wye.

The ambulance took Ms Davies to Nevill Hall Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, before she was transferred to Llantrisant’s Royal Glamorgan Hospital where she later died of hypoxic brian injury and probably pneumonia.

In his narrative verdict deputy assistant coroner for Bridgend and Glamorgan Valleys Wayne Griffiths said delays in handing over patients at hospitals, resulting in delayed responses to calls waiting, a delay in the rapid response and an ambulance from the adjacent trust may have contributed to her death.

In another case last December, an ambulance took 17 minutes to reach the Monmouth home of premature baby Corey Marx last December.

A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesman said the service was aware of the importance of the petition and is committed to improving the quality of the ambulance service provided.