Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I was raising this subject with the Taoiseach yesterday, there were some young girls present from Sancta Maria College in Louisburgh. Two of them told me afterwards about the impact that the absence of a fit for purpose ambulance service in Mayo has had on them. One told me about her sister having an anaphylactic shock and that she had to be rushed to hospital in a car, while the second told me she had lost her grandmother while waiting for an ambulance. That is the reality of not having an ambulance service that is fit for purpose. It is not just the ambulance services of course because there are also delays and long turnaround times in the hospitals. I commend the Regional Group on the solutions it has put forward. We also put forward solutions last night.

This morning, we heard Councillor Michael Kilcoyne tell Midwest Radio that an elderly person has waited for five days on a trolley in Mayo University Hospital. This is becoming normalised; that is the problem. It is being accepted by the Government but it is totally wrong. Excuse after excuse can be put forward but it is not right. The Minister of State knows that people are losing their lives because we do not have a system that is fit for purpose. We have to ask why that is the case, why there are flows through the hospital and why ambulances are backed up outside hospitals when that should not be the case. We will hear another excuse for that but we have to fix this problem, particularly in counties such as Mayo where people travel in ambulances for over 50 miles on bad roads, arrive at a hospital and then have to wait hours outside just to get in because the hospital is backed up. It is a serious situation and I have never seen as bad as it is now. It has to be resolved.

See this speech in context