James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and welcome the officials to the committee. It has been referred to very strongly in contributions by other members but the importance the NAS has across every constituency in the country cannot be understated. All I can tell the officials about is what is happening in my own area and unfortunately the reports are not good. Recently, we had an incident in east Cork where a gentlemen who was waiting over 90 minutes for an ambulance died. I have dealt with other consequences for people who have been waiting well in excess of an hour. The consequence of course was the person who was waiting for the ambulance is now deceased. Unfortunately, this seems to be a recurring issue. Our existing ambulance service staff, especially those in the HSE Cork-Kerry region, are working exceptionally hard. I know many of them and they are good people but they will say themselves they are under huge stress.

Something I find completely unacceptable is that when it comes to arriving at the hospital, staff must remain with patients and this effectively disallows them from leaving places like Cork University Hospital and other emergency rooms to go back on the road and get back out there to help people. It is a profoundly flawed system. That is the question I put first and foremost. From a cost perspective, what is the HSE planning to do to allow a quicker turnaround time for ambulance crews who arrive at a hospital with an extremely sick patient and who want to get the patient into the hospital and leave? I am hearing many reports of crews who are being left in the hospital caring for patients, which is something they should not be doing, quite frankly. It is a huge concern because the knock-on impact is that ambulance crew will not get to another patient who needs them.