Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have a serious issue with waiting times for ambulances arrivals - 500 times in six months last year, ambulances took longer than an hour to arrive on the scene of a high priority case. These can be cases of life and death, literally. The Minister for Health may wish to respond. I have just been informed of a very sad case in my constituency in which an elderly woman suffered broken bones and a head injury at her home, which is ten minutes from a hospital. The ambulance took three hours to arrive and the delay, the family were told, resulted from a shortage of trolleys at St. Vincent's University Hospital. Very sadly, this poor woman died some weeks later. I express my deepest sympathies to her family, who asked me to raise this case. The family deserved better than a three-hour wait for an ambulance to bring a patient just ten minutes up the road. How will the Minister act to speed up ambulance responses?

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