Dáil hears Mayo ambulance service is in a dire situation

A MAYO TD described that ambulance service in Mayo as being 'dire and unsustainable' and called on the Taoiseach and the Minister of Health to ‘lead a coordinated government response' to improve the service.

Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh claimed the ambulance service in Mayo is in a crisis and raised the matter with An Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Dáil yesterday, she asked what he was going to do to improve the service.

The Erris-based TD said the ambulance service in parts of Mayo is in a dire situation and claimed people who call for an ambulance are not told when it will arrive.

“I want to raise the issue of the lack of ambulance services, particularly in north Mayo and the west of Ireland more widely,” she asked the Taoiseach in the Dáil.

“It is a dire situation that I have never seen as bad in all of my time, where people cannot get an ambulance on time. There are incidents where people have had to travel 50 miles on very bad roads to get to the nearest hospital. When people call an ambulance, they cannot even be told when it is going to come.

“My question is this. Does the Taoiseach know how many people are dying prematurely because they cannot get an ambulance on time? What is he going to do about it?” she asked.

In response, An Taoiseach said there is a national framework on the organisation and administration of ambulances and he will refer her question to the National Ambulance Service.

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Speaking after raising the issue in the Dáil, Deputy Conway-Walsh called for urgent intervention from the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health to lead a coordinated government response and improve the overall provision of ambulance services for Mayo communities.

Rose Conway-Walsh says the ambulance service is in crisis

“I want to commend in the strongest possible terms the dedicated work of the ambulance services and hospital staff in Co Mayo, and indeed the staff of all emergency services in the West, who have collectively saved the lives of countless loved ones, but they are working under huge stress in a broken system.

“The lack of ambulance services, particularly in North Mayo, is a dire situation that I have never seen as bad in all my time as a public representative, where people cannot get an ambulance on time.

“Too many people in life-threatening situations are finding themselves in the horrific scenario whereby they cannot be told when an ambulance is going to arrive, with some patients left waiting hours. Others have taken it upon themselves to travel 50 miles on very bad roads to get to the nearest hospital when an ambulance didn’t arrive.

“For those who have managed to get in an ambulance, they are being brought to overcrowded Emergency Departments that do not have adequate staffing or the bed capacity to accept them. We cannot have a situation whereby ambulances are effectively being taken off the road to be used as overflow capacity for hospitals.

“That is why I asked the Taoiseach directly if he knew how many lives have been cut short as a result of ambulances being unavailable to respond to emergencies on time,” she said.

Conway-Walsh stressed that simply allocating funding for additional ambulances, without addressing the wider failures in the health and social care system, will not resolve the crisis.

“Providing additional funding for more ambulances only for them to be left queueing at overcrowded Emergency Departments is not the answer either. This is not an ambulance-only problem, it is a system-wide failure that requires a coordinated government response to tackle the bottlenecks preventing patients from moving through the health system.

“In addition to more ambulance crews, we need serious investment in step-down beds, homecare packages and community support, so that patients who are medically fit for discharge can leave hospital safely and quickly. This would immediately free up hospital beds, reduce Emergency Department overcrowding, and allow ambulances to get back on the road.

“This crisis demands coordinated, cross-departmental action from the Government before more families are left devastated by the avoidable loss of their loved ones. Lives in the West depend on it,” she concluded.