A Ceredigion stroke sufferer has backed calls for major improvements to services after it emerged that more than a fifth of stroke survivors said they did not receive adequate support.

World Stroke Day, which was on Tuesday, 29 October, saw a new report highlighting the issues that stroke patients had seen with their treatment.

The Stroke Association report shows that 21 per cent of Welsh stroke survivors did not feel they received enough support, with thousands saying they didn’t receive adequate support after leaving hospital.

Ceredigion resident Sue Gardiner, 56, had a stroke in 2018 and spent three months recovering in hospital and had to learn to walk again.

Sue, who is still unable to go out alone, said she experienced problems with physiotherapy with staff having to cope with under-staffing.

She said: “I was a workaholic before my stroke.

“I was really independent and always out and about.

“The stroke took that away from me.

“The physiotherapists are fantastic and with their help I can now walk with a frame, but they’re so short-staffed that there was no consistency about how much support I received.

“There were three months when I had nothing at all, I was just abandoned.

“As for emotional support, I wasn’t offered anything.

“Counselling would’ve really helped me and my husband Alan, but we’ve been left feeling very lonely.”

The Stroke Association report found that while 83 per cent of survivors were left with mobility problems, 45 per cent of them said they needed longer or more frequent support from physiotherapy services, while 23 per cent said they didn’t have enough information about what would happen when they left hospital.

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