Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 February 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Ambulance Services, Recruitment and Retention of Personnel, and Response Times: Discussion

Mr. Robert Morton:

That is true. Ultimately, when someone arrives at the emergency department, he or she will be categorised into one of four categories whether he or she comes by ambulance or not. That is done by a triage nurse, generally, more or less in every hospital. They use a system not dissimilar to what we use. It is called something different but it pretty much arrives at the same thing. What they are looking for is that the sickest patient will be brought in. That sickest patient may not necessarily be the patient who was brought in by ambulance. It could be somebody who got out of a car, stumbled into the emergency department and collapsed on the floor. Going by ambulance does not get someone up the queue. That is the simple fact of it.

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