Parts of West ‘too rural’ for ambulance cover

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has been warned not to abandon the West of Ireland after a confidential report highlighted how certain parts of the country are ‘too rural’ for ambulances to meet recommended response times.

Independent TD, Denis Naughten has demanded that ambulance service management not to “throw in the towel on rural Ireland” on foot of an ambulance capacity review which he says is “deeply flawed”.

He has slammed the health service for prioritising ‘saving money over saving lives’.

The unpublished report, seen by Deputy Naughten, says that Ireland is too rural to support an ambulance service comparable to that in England and to meet targets for response times.

It is recommended that emergency calls are responded to within eight minutes but this report says that just 6.6% of emergency calls in rural Ireland are responded to within that timeframe.

Across Ireland, 27% of calls were responded to within eight minutes.

The eight minutes target, set down by Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), ‘cannot possibly’ be achieved according to the authors of the report, Lightfoot Solutions a UK Consultancy.

Deputy Naughten says the report is flawed and doesn’t compare like with like.

“This report, which seems to base its conclusions on England, is not comparing like with like, and suggests that even with resources, only 64% of emergencies can have a first responder at the scene of the incident within eight minutes. Yet in Scotland, 74.7% of responses there were within the eight-minute target.

“In Northern Ireland their target for responses within eight minutes is 72.5%, with a minimum target not less than 65% in any area. Yet this report is stating that we cannot achieve that here in Ireland. The fact is that every delayed ambulance, potentially leads to the loss of a life, and geography should not determine if you should live or die,” he said.

Deputy Naughten says the report seems to be commissioned in order to preserve the status quo but what’s really needed is investment in ambulance services, not excuses as to why that investment should not take place.

“This report seems to be an attempt to justify doing more with less. They’re saying that even with €15 million extra, and 290 extra staff, the number of calls that would be responded to within eight minutes would be 65%. That’s why I’m so critical of it – I’m saying the resources of the ambulance service currently is spread so thin that we need to invest in more ambulances and more ambulance staff and we need that investment yesterday. In the case of heart attack, stroke or choking, or any serious incident that needs an emergency responder, it is holy water you’d need after eight minutes,” he said.

Deputy Naughten added: “It is amazing that, even though the ambulance response time figures were highlighted at the time that the Government was closing the smaller A&E departments such as in Roscommon Hospital, we were assured that we would have a ‘world class’ ambulance service.

“We now find that these communities are to be completely abandoned and the clear policy agenda across all State agencies is to forget rural Ireland, because saving money is now more important than saving communities or lives.”