Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Covid-19 has highlighted not only the importance of our ambulance services but the severe stress we put them under due to the complete failure of this Government to provide the necessary funding and investment that these services need. I was in this House in 2014 when we called on the Government to address the lack of staff and resources being reported by ambulance services. I stand here again more than seven years later and very little has changed. The incompetence of this Government, as well as previous Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments, is absolutely staggering. How can we expect to trust these parties can deliver on anything when our ambulance service, which was on the brink in 2014, remains on the brink now?

It is said the service cannot be fixed overnight but I fail to see how it cannot be fixed over seven years. To fix the ambulance service in Donegal would take the provision of three extra ambulances in the county. We need one for the Killybegs base, one in Inishowen and one more for the county generally. Surely it is not beyond the service to provide that.

My office has had reports of staff suffering burnout and exhaustion due to extremely long shifts. Only last month we had reports of a Donegal ambulance being tasked to Tipperary and another tasked to Belmullet. A Donegal patient, meanwhile, was brought to Letterkenny hospital in a Garda car because no ambulance was available. This prompts serious questions about the dispatching of our ambulances. Ambulance crews backed up at hospitals waiting to discharge patients are a typical example of the dysfunction of our health services.

At a recent meeting we heard from the manager of Letterkenny University Hospital and he made a big display, indicating to members that 80% of ambulances at the hospital were freed within two hours every time. This is the precise point as he did not mention that 20% of ambulances are there for longer than two hours. That is what leads to the problem around the county.

More recently there have been fears about the future of our Lifford ambulance base and I cannot stress enough that Donegal cannot afford to lose any more ambulance bases. There has been some good news as well with the roll-out of community paramedics, although that provision now seems to be stalled. These paramedics can divert patients from hospital and have them treated at home, which will save pressure from being exerted on hospitals. Of course, in typical HSE style, the roll-out has stopped, probably to be penny wise and pound foolish.

It is completely unacceptable that the people who are doing the most in this country are being given the least but, unfortunately, that will be the legacy of the Government. I hope its members hang their heads as a result.

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