Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very important motion. It is one of the most hurtful things that is happening in our county at present. We do not have an adequate service. I compliment the drivers, paramedics and all the staff who do an excellent job. It is the management of the ambulance service that is wrong without a shadow of a doubt. Ambulance workers are burnt out from long exhausting shifts. Ambulance staff work very hard to perform an invaluable service in caring for our communities.

Far too often, patients are left waiting for far too long when they need urgent medical help. This not only causes considerable distress to patients but can worsen the medical outcomes. We must stand up for our ambulance service workers and ensure they get the support they need to do their jobs properly. We need to expand our ambulance fleet to ensure rural communities are properly served and not left behind as they are at the present time. We need to increase hospital capacity to avoid patients being left waiting in ambulances.

Up until 2012, we had a very good ambulance service before the reconfiguration of the National Ambulance Service. What it actually meant was a reduction of the ambulance service. Ambulances are being deployed from south Kerry deep into the heart of west Cork. Recently an ambulance crew started off at 8 o'clock in the morning and took a patient to Cork University Hospital. When they pressed the button coming out of there, they were sent to Dungarvan to take a patient to University Hospital Waterford. When they came out of Waterford, they were told to go back to Dungarvan for a second patient and took that patient back to Waterford again. Then they thought they were coming back to Kerry but they were told to go to Clonmel. That is the God's honest gospel truth. That happened. Our county of Kerry was left a whole 12-hour shift without that ambulance, which is not good enough.

We are on the back burner because more ambulances go to Cork and not so many Cork ambulances go to Kerry. Therefore, we are left without a service. A farmer had four fingers cut off. After a long wait, his wife had to wrap up his hand, bundle him into a car and take him herself. The last drive that Ambrose O'Sullivan got to the hospital, instead of being in an ambulance was in his wheelchair in the back of a Transit van. That is not good enough. We had a better service years ago than we have now. The Government needs to wake up and do something about it.

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