A WOMAN was left waiting for an ambulance on a roadside for nearly four hours in Doonbeg this week.
For approximately four hours, the woman was left sitting in a tent provided by the Fire Brigade in scenes which have been labelled “completely unacceptable” by elected representatives.
At approximately 11:30 on Monday morning, a single vehicle road traffic accident occurred outside Doonbeg. An ambulance was requested at 11:40, a helicopter arrived on site at 14:45 and an ambulance followed at 15:00. The patient departed the scene at 15:20 in the ambulance after she was assessed and found to not have been seriously injured which prompted the air ambulance to be stood down.
Emergency services at the scene were informed after speaking to the National Ambulance Service call centre that an ambulance was seventy five minutes away yet a further call resulted in them receiving information that there was no resource available.
Clare TD, Joe Cooney (FG) said he was “shocked by the facts” and the timeline of events. In correspondence issued to the Head of the NAS in the Mid-West, Deputy Cooney called it “an entirely unacceptable situation. Yet again, we have an example of how the system is not working properly for the communities that live on the periphery of the county”
He added, “I also understand that a member of Kilkee Fire Brigade qualified as an EMT was unable to provide appropriate assistance due to an issue with the local authority and risk management or insurance. While this is obviously not an issue for the NAS to deal with, it does highlight how two arms of the state have the resources between them to complement each other and to provide good quality emergency cover for more isolated communities”.
Cathaoirleach of the West Clare MD, Cllr Rita McInerney (FF) described the situation as “utterly unacceptable” and one which has “the potential to be life-threatening”. She said, “The ambulance personal are amazing people, responding with professionalism and care when I have encountered them myself. They are overworked and under resourced. However, this response time is not just inadequate, it is dangerous.”
“This isn’t the first time, and sadly, it won’t be the last. We in West Clare pay the same taxes as everyone else in this country, yet we are forced to tolerate an inadequate standard of emergency care. Furthermore, any incident in West Clare is exasperated by our isolation so when the ambulance does depart, they have the arduous journey to University Hospital Limerick on what is a substandard road network,” she stated.
Cllr McInerney called on the Minister for Health, HSE senior management, and Government representatives to urgently sit down and sort out the chronic under-resourcing of the NAS in Clare. “The people of West Clare are being put in danger every single day by a under resourced, underfunded, and neglected health emergency system. This isn’t politics—it’s people’s lives”.
In a separate incident in Inagh on Monday, a woman with serious crush injuries had to be airlifted to hospital.
