Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before I get into the important issue, I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for taking this Topical Issue. By way of illustration for anyone watching this debate, I sought to raise this, the most important issue in County Clare at the moment, last week in the Dáil, but it was not selected due to the rigmarole. I only had one speaking slot last week, on laws from the 1820 to 1850 period. People in Clare heard me talking about the Great Famine and everything else when there were pressing issues I needed to address. Thankfully, I have speaking time today and will progress this issue.

I want to speak about delays in ambulance care in County Clare. In the critical time following an accident or incident in a home, how quickly an ambulance arrives and then brings someone to an accident and emergency department is crucial. Unfortunately, my family knows this all too well. Today is 2 April, and exactly five months ago today, my mother-in-law was killed in a road traffic accident on the main street of Charleville. Out of respect for the late woman, I will mention her name, Mary Fehilly. We are very grateful as a family for the ambulance service in north County Cork and the air ambulance that brought her to CUH. Unfortunately, the outcome was not a good one and she passed away.

Everything is time critical. I want to illustrate two examples where, in the past week alone, ambulances have not arrived on time in County Clare. The first was on 24 March, where there was a road traffic accident in Doonbeg in west Clare. An elderly woman got out of a car and sat at the roadside. She was very sick and had a headache. She was not fully coherent. Emergency services, including the Clare county fire service, arrived and were outstanding, as they always are, but she had waited on the roadside for a three-hour period before being taken from there. That is unforgivable. I am not blaming the National Ambulance Service - it was run ragged that day and had to respond to several other incidents in the county - but that response time was not good enough. It speaks to undercapacity in County Clare. These matters are time critical. Thankfully, the woman is home and has recovered well, but in the moment following the road traffic accident, nobody knew what her state was, whether there was damage to her spine or whether she would have a cardiac episode. The situation was time critical and a three-hour wait is not good enough. I do not know of any country where someone would have to wait three hours.

The following day, 25 March, there was another incident in west Clare. An elderly woman was unresponsive, with low blood pressure, a history of cardiac issues and diabetes. Her daughter, a nurse, came upon her. The daughter knew, given the vital signs, that there were a lot of red alerts and made a 999 call. She was told an ambulance was on the way. For the next 90 minutes, she heard nothing. There was no update on when the ambulance would arrive. She phoned 999 again and was told she should only ring the number if the situation deteriorated. Eventually, the daughter drove her mother to the hospital. She was freaked out and panicked, driving in traffic from rural roads to join the M18 motorway, knowing that her mother was unwell in the car. Ambulatory care should have brought the woman to hospital.

UHL and the crisis in emergency healthcare in the mid-west is highlighted here every week. For many people, the entry point to emergency care is the arrival of an ambulance. I reiterate for the record, lest it be misconstrued, that I am not criticising the fantastic men and women of the National Ambulance Service or the Clare fire service, which provides ancillary cover until an ambulance can arrive. I am just pointing out that if someone lives at one of the extremities of my vast county in west or north Clare, which are at the polar ends of the county from where I live, that person is a long way from acute care and, as the evidence I provided today shows, from ambulatory care. I hope the Minister of State can provide some news and hope to people in those parts of County Clare because they panic when something goes wrong.

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