It took more than 20 minutes for an elderly woman with an open head injury to be given first aid, despite the fact that she was just a few blocks away from the Mosta health centre.

The incident occurred in the early hours of Monday when the roads are usually clear of traffic.

The 78-year-old fainted at 4.15am, falling and badly injuring her head. She remained unconscious for some 10 minutes, her daughter told this newspaper. Her symptoms included twitching and foaming at the mouth, indicating she could be suffering from a stroke.

You should be ashamed of yourselves, calling three times

The woman was in Mosta with her relatives, who immediately called for an ambulance. The local health centre has an ambulance on stand-by but one showed up more than 20 minutes later, at 4.36am. It is not known if the ambulance came from the clinic or from the hospital.

The woman’s daughter said they had followed up their initial phone call after 10 minutes, when there was still no sign of an ambulance and the elderly woman was still unconscious.

They were told the ambulance was on its way.

With blood still gushing out of her wound despite attempts to stop it with a pillow, her daughter called again 10 minutes later.

When the receiver realised this was the third call, he exclaimed: “You should be ashamed of yourselves, calling three times.”

He hung up when he was asked for his name.

By the time the ambulance arrived at 4.36am, the 78-year-old woman had regained consciousness although she remained disorientated.

When she was seen to by the paramedics, they said she needed to be taken to hospital immediately as she could have suffered a stroke or a fit. With blood still gushing out, they asked her if she could walk down a flight of stairs.

She told them she felt too weak to walk, however, the paramedics insisted that she walk down one storey to the ambulance.

The paramedics only brought up an ambulance evacuation chair when her relatives insisted she was not fit to walk, her daughter recalled.

Once at the hospital, it was eventually concluded that she had not suffered a stroke. However, the impact had been so great that the 78-year-old woman needed eight stitches in her head and was kept overnight.

Her relatives’ concern is that the 20-minute delay could have aggravated her condition had she actually suffered a stroke or something similar.

While the Health Parliamentary Secretariat said that Mater Dei Hospital would be looking into these claims, questions – including why an ambulance was not dispatched from the Mosta health centre and whether it condoned the behaviour of the operator – were not answered by the time of going to print.