PATIENTS suffering serious heart attacks could have to wait for a roadside rendezvous in their ambulance with a paramedic before getting any pain relief, The Evening Star can reveal today.

PATIENTS suffering serious heart attacks could have to wait for a roadside rendezvous in their ambulance with a paramedic before getting any pain relief, The Evening Star can reveal today.

The victims could suffer without intravenous drugs until 20 minutes into their journey to one of the region's new heart attack centres because some ambulances are staffed by technicians rather than paramedics, the head of Accident & Emergency at Ipswich Hospital has warned.

The new concern, highlighted on the eve of the visit of Britain's heart tsar to Suffolk tomorrow, is just one of many voiced by Dr David Hodgkinson in previously unseen e-mails.

The serious worries also include a warning that Suffolk victims could be twice as likely to die as others simply because of where they live.

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