Ambulance waiting time crisis
Overworked ambulance crews are experiencing burn-out in Cork with reports of waiting times of more than two hours.
The difficulties currently faced by the National Ambulance Service (NAS) were discussed at a joint Oireachtas Health Committee meeting yesterday, Wednesday.
Addressing the members, SIPTU Sector Organiser Ted Kenny confirmed that monthly demand in the second half of this year is at levels normally experienced in December pre-Covid-19.
He said Covid-19 has had a huge impact on many aspects of the service and is leading to more and more staff experiencing burn-out due to long hours and extremely difficult conditions.
“Hospital offload delays have increased in number and time duration. Call volume to emergency control centres has increased. The time duration of each call has extended due to additional personal protection and infection prevention control measures required when managing Covid-19.
SIPTU, which represents over 1,600 members in the NAS, has expressed concerns over the high level of pressure on the ambulance service and says that staff recruitment retention in the service has become a serious issue.
Mr Kenny continued: “The issue around dispatching ambulances, especially in rural Ireland, we have had situations where ambulance are dispatched from nearly two and a half hours away from the scene.”
He said these long distance callouts can often mean that ambulance crews work much longer hours than they should.
“There would normally be two 12-hour shift systems, 8am-8pm and 8pm-8am. Because of the callout volumes at the moment, those extended duties could run into 16, 17, 18 hour shifts.”
On Monday, the issue of ambulance waiting times in county Cork was the subject of much concern amongst elected members of Cork County Council.
Cllr Frank Roche (Independent) said a man from Castletownroche died of a heart attack in October while waiting for emergency services to arrive.
He said: “Castletownroche is 20 minutes from Mallow or Fermoy and yet it took the ambulance two and a half hours to come to this poor man having a heart attack. His family must live for the rest of their lives wondering if that ambulance had come in time, would that man have been saved?”
Cllr Roche was clear in pointing out that he was not being critical of the ambulance crews themselves.
Fine Gael Cllr Michael Paul Murtagh who works with the Cork City Fire Department and is involved in the operation of a cardiac unit which responds to emergencies when no ambulance is available, said a similar system could be rolled out across the county.
He said: “I see this as the result of cutting numbers on the ground, there’s the same issue with the guards and in the fire service. These guys and girls risk their lives all the time, literally and regularly, and it’s a very serious thing that needs to be addressed. One solution would be through our fire department. There’s fire stations in every community across the county and there is trained personnel.”
Independent Cllr Ben Dalton O’Sullivan added: “I do think there needs to be review on the quantity of ambulances in county Cork, but, I want to pay tribute to the ambulance staff who are on the frontline and often they do work in the unknown where they’re going into situations that they aren’t familiar with under possibly dangerous situations, and we thank them.”