Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise serious concerns we have about the ambulance service in west Cork. West Cork has four ambulances: one based in Clonakilty; one based in Castletownbere, one based in Bantry General Hospital; and one based in Skibbereen. I am reliably informed that, on most days and from early morning to late at night, the Clonakilty ambulance is in Cork city and county, not in west Cork, where it is supposed to be. The Castletownbere ambulance is in Kerry, tied up all day and night, leaving just two ambulances to cover the whole of west Cork. Cork, being 132 km long, is the longest county in the country.

When the Skibbereen and Bantry ambulances get a call from anywhere in west Cork, they are instructed, no matter how big or small the medical issue is, to take the patient to Cork University Hospital, in many cases bypassing Bantry General Hospital, which could easily sort the problems. This is an issue for another day. When the two ambulances arrive at Cork University Hospital, their patients most likely cannot be taken into the hospital due to overcrowding, meaning the ambulances are tied up outside the door for hours, thus leaving the whole of west Cork without any ambulance cover.

To compound the problem further, some of the west Cork ambulances are sent to Waterford, Tipperary or Listowel, leaving west Cork with no ambulance service cover on many nights.

I am not making this up. These are the facts and I will tell the Taoiseach how I know. First, it is from talking with families who have had loved ones in agony at home waiting for hours and hours for an ambulance and it has not arrived or it has arrived too late. Also, it is too common in west Cork when people ring for an ambulance and find out how long it will be before it will arrive that they lift the very ill patient into the car and head to the hospital in a fight to save his or her live. I am aware of this also from the dedicated ambulance staff, who cannot come forward as they will get fired. They are telling me that what is happening in west Cork is unbelievable and is something they feel very strongly about as they are trained to save the many people in west Cork. Their efforts are being used by a faulty system to save everybody else in every other county but the one they live in and signed up to work in.

How many people have to die before the Government sits up and takes notice that this system is not working? The HSE and the ambulance service cannot hide behind the dark of night and hope no-one will know they have no cover in west Cork for the people from the Beara Peninsula, Bantry, the Mizen, Sheep's Head, Skibbereen and Dunmanway, as well as Clonakilty, Bandon and Kinsale. It is a massive geographical spread with no cover and this is on the Taoiseach's watch. The facts speak for themselves: people lying on the roadside for hours after a car crash; elderly people lying for almost a day after a fall, one of whom was left for 16 or 17 hours and a case that turned out to be a serious broken bone; or in some recent cases parents driving a seriously ill family member to the hospital as no ambulance could be found. I have spoken of this to the former Taoiseach but not a thing has changed. Now I ask the Taoiseach to make changes to save the lives of the people of west Cork who require a simple ambulance service that cannot be found.

I ask the Taoiseach to look at the imminent collapse of the ambulance services in west Cork. The ambulance service is losing the best staff anyone could ask for due to stress issues around delivering hours and hours hundreds of kilometres away from their base. West Cork cannot be allowed to remain wide open for so many nights without cover, with this Government standing idly by and covered by the dark of night. It cannot continue. What does the Taoiseach plan to overhaul this mess, which is having serious consequences for the people from Innishannon to the Mizen Peninsula?

See this speech in context