Taoiseach, ‘Staff Mulranny Ambulance Base Now’

MAKING THEIR POINT ?Dr Jerry Cowley is pictured with a group of local people displaying some of the 3,000 signed petitions at the opened but unmanned HSE Ambulance base in Mulranny.

Taoiseach told to ‘staff Mulranny ambulance base now’


Petition plea by 3,000 people

Áine Ryan

FOR 3,000 people living in remote areas of west Mayo, it is a poignant plea: “Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister Michael Ring, we are pleading with you to save our lives, prevent disability by providing the finance necessary to employ the HSE personnel required to run the newly opened Mulranny HSE Ambulance Base.”
The petition signed over recent months in GP surgeries from Mulranny to Achill, Ballycroy to Currane, was delivered to the Taoiseach Castlebar office yesterday by Dr Jerry Cowley. It comes just days after the HSE announced that both Tuam and Mulranny ambulance stations have been prioritised for staffing in the HSE Service Plan for 2015.
Welcoming last week’s announcement, a statement by Mr Kenny explained that Mulranny Ambulance station, which was completed in late 2013, ‘has been operating as an Emergency despatch point since then where crews from Castlebar and or Ballina are despatched’.
“A funding allocation of almost €700,000 has been made in the HSE Service Plan for 2015 for both stations. The new facility built in Mulranny once staffed will improve the Critical Time Elements to an increased number of the population in the area. An additional 7,000 people will now fall within the target response time of 19 minutes.  
“The provision of an ambulance station in the Mulranny area will close the gap in coverage that exists in the isolated area of West Mayo and support the service already in Belmullet.  I understand from the National Ambulance Service that these welcome additional resources will be introduced on a phased basis from September 2015,” Taoiseach Enda Kenny stated.   
The statement further explained that Intermediary Care services, introduced in 2013 by the National Ambulance Service, were ‘implemented to allow Emergency Ambulances to focus on their core function of responding to emergency calls’. The west area was allocated nine intermediate care vehicles which focussed on emergency care services, it stated.

Campaign
However, Dr Jerry Cowley, a longtime campaigner for the Ambulance Base in Mulranny and better services for the remote areas of west Mayo, has strongly criticised the fact that the full service will not be rolled-out for almost another year.
“The Mulranny base is opened for a year now and they are talking about the guts of another year before it is in place with a proper service. They are saying they will begin the roll-out next September. It is not clear how the €700,000 for both the Tuam and Mulranny bases will be allocated but it won’t be enough to have a 24-seven service,” Dr Cowley told The Mayo News yesterday.  
“I have already delivered seven babies over the years whose parents couldn’t make it to Mayo General and we shouldn’t have to be relying on home births in the 21st century. It is a retrograde step if baby have to be born in the community,” he continued.
He welcomed the fact that Taoiseach Enda Kenny rang him yesterday, in response to the petition, and assured him that he was ‘very aware of the 3,000 signatories of the petition and he would get back to him on the situation’.
The 3,000 signatures are from people from Mulranny to Ballycroy, Currane to Achill, Newportww, Kilmeena and Inishbiggle, who have attended surgeries run by Dr Cowley, as well as Drs King, O’Leary and Lineen.