Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Minister for Health is not available, but I hope that the Minister of State will pass on my points. County Wicklow may be the only county that has never had a general hospital. As a result, the area has historically been served by hospitals in Naas, Tallaght, Loughlinstown and, in some cases, the general hospital in Wexford town. This has led to a fragmented service, one that may not always have had the confidence of the public.

In recent years and in conjunction with the former Tánaiste, the area's elected representatives and I have met the HSE and the National Ambulance Service with a view to reconfiguring the emergency services in north-east Wicklow, moving them from Loughlinstown to St. Vincent's University Hospital. Sometime last week or the previous week, clinical directive 03/2014 was issued by the National Ambulance Service to the effect that the emergency services at St. Vincent's would no longer be available for people suffering cardiac arrest in County Wicklow and that they would be required to go to the nearest primary percutaneous coronary intervention, PPCI, unit. My understanding is that there are only two such units in Dublin - St. James's Hospital and the Mater hospital. This would result in an additional journey of 20 or 30 minutes, depending on traffic.

That this directive was made caused consternation locally, as did the fact that it was impossible to establish who had made the decision or its basis. Once again, no one in the HSE was responsible. How was this clinical directive issued and what was its basis? According to the directive, the service was to cease indefinitely with effect from 16.00 hours on 7 November. After the pandemonium and the hullabaloo that were kicked up, an amending directive was made to the effect that the service would be restored from this Tuesday onwards.

How did all of this happen? In any future reconfiguration, the PPCI unit in St. Vincent's should remain open to cardiac arrest sufferers in south Dublin and north-east Wicklow.

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