Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If patient demand for NAS services continues to rise, with nearly 430,000 urgent and emergency calls received last year, representing a year-on-year rise in volume of 8%, why then has the National Ambulance Service stopped training advanced paramedics? Why has it stopped the privileging courses? Fully qualified advanced paramedics who have trained elsewhere, some I understand in the Defence Forces, can only work as paramedics. That privileging course the National Ambulance Service eventually agreed to run in May of this year might not be able to manage the 14 or 15 people. How can it not run a course for 14 or 15 people and allow them to be advanced paramedics?

I am concerned about an acknowledgement that we have more urgent and emergency calls but the only paramedics in the National Ambulance Service who provide advanced life support are not being trained. They are not being respected or recognised either. In fact, I believe they are being dismantled entirely, and Roscommon is a case in point. Management keeps saying they cannot fill the roster in Roscommon. They will not fill it when they are not doing privileging courses and they are not training APs. I am also aware there are advanced paramedics in Roscommon willing to take up a full-time role on that roster but they are stopping themselves from doing it because they are constantly being pulled to cover. If someone became the AP on that roster, they are put off doing that because they are constantly being pulled to cover elsewhere.

We need that roster in place and that decision needs to be reversed. We are not near an accident and emergency department. That is why we got the air ambulance, which is available but further away; it is based in Dublin. An AP can be the difference between life and death. I do not say that to scare people. It is the absolute reality. Nowhere in the Minister of State's response did he acknowledge that a commitment was made to the people of Roscommon and that commitment has been broken. I acknowledge the Minister of State's comments about Loughglynn, where I was lucky enough to be able to deliver a 24-7 service because the previous director Martin Dunne was excellent at engaging and doing what was right. That is also an issue now because we have no engagement at all, unfortunately, with the new director.

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