The front page of today’s Irish Daily Mirror
A report in today’s Irish Daily Mirror has revealed how lives are being put at risk in the North East due to the ambulance service here being crippled by cuts.
The paper reports a series of huge delays in getting to the victims of murders, heart attacks and road accidents in the Louth and Meath area.
As part of the report, Michael Dixon, chairman of the National Ambulance Service Representative Association, claimed we have just one paramedic for every 3,800.
In comparison, there is one paramedic for every 1,500 citizens in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Mr Dixon said: “These cases are becoming more and more obvious to the public and there is a concern there at the moment.
“We don’t have the resources, we don’t have the vehicles or the personnel at ground level.”
The standard response time expected for emergency calls is 18 minutes and 59 seconds.
However, this time is repeatedly breached and recently the Mirror revealed that 5,000 emergency calls made within the first quarter of 2013 didn’t have an ambulance at the scene within 19 minutes.
The problems in the North East were brought to light last week after a dying man waited nearly half an hour for an ambulance.
Gardai were forced to bring Wayne McQuillan in an unmarked squad car to hospital after he was knifed at his home in Rathmullen, Drogheda, Co Louth, in the early hours of New Year’s day.
The popular 30-year-old died in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital a short time later.
During the recent bad weather, local Sinn Féin councillor Tomás Sharkey took to social media encouraging everyone on the roads to drive extra safely because there were no ambulances operating in the area at the time if they needed assistance.
