Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will ask Mr. Reid about something that was not on the invitation, but it is an issue that has arisen in a serious way. It relates to the national ambulance service. There are situations arising due to what is called "dynamic deployment", which is the term that is used, where a number of ambulances are chasing across the country to emergency cases. I will give an example. In Laois, ambulances have been sent towards the Carlow border, but when they are three quarters of the way there they are stood down, which is the term used, and told there is no need to continue as the patient has been picked up. An ambulance might then be sent to south Kilkenny. When it is almost in south Kilkenny it receives a similar call saying it has been stood down as the patient has been picked up and it is then sent to County Waterford. A similar situation arises in County Waterford and it is then diverted to another location. The 12-hour shift can end without it actually picking up a patient. Those situations are occurring.

I understand there is a working group examining this, but the situation has continued over the past couple of years. It has led to circumstances where people have been left waiting. In one case I had two years ago an elderly person was waiting in Clonaslee, which is 13 or 14 miles from Portlaoise hospital, for over two hours for an ambulance to arrive. There was a case recently of a serious accident in Portlaoise involving sport, but the local ambulance that was available was in Wexford at that time. That is what I have been told. People working in the ambulance crews across the country are raising these concerns with us. The dynamic deployment is not working. There cannot be a situation where people are clocking up over 400 km during a shift without picking up a patient. The old system, where it was completely localised, might not have been perfect but there has to be some local dimension to it.

There is also the point of having to pick up on every call. From what I am told, it allows the people in the control centres or the response centres to be able to tick the box and say that an ambulance has responded within 90 seconds, as I understand there is a 90-second target, but the problem is that people are being left waiting for an hour, two hours and in excess of two hours, while the ambulances in the area are 50 to 80 miles away. The system simply is not working. There have been several situations in counties Laois and Offaly where patients have been left for those long periods of time.