Local ambulance crews are stressed out but service is 'designed around international best practice' says HSE
THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has responded to concerns expressed in a recent letter to Tullamore Municipal District and read by Councillor Tony McCormack on behalf of local ambulance personnel.
The letter stated, that stressed ambulance crews are often expected to 'cover unreasonable distances in response to emergency calls which can be two or three counties away and therefore this means there may be no ambulance cover for the area we are supposed to cover and in turn the people of our community have to wait even longer for an ambulance.'
The letter continued, ''all too often, local ambulances have to respond to calls not just in the neighbouring counties of Laois, Westmeath and Longford, but also Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Roscommon and Galway.''
The letter added that this was a nationwide issue which has been allowed to develop. ''Now anyone who requires immediate emergency care is having to wait for far too long for an emergency ambulance.
The letter writer spoke of the stress involved in the job when dealing with life and death challenges and went on to say that ambulance crews are not getting enough time to rest between calls with many now choosing to leave the sector.
However, The HSE say the current model deployed by them is ''designed around best practice.''
In a statement it said the ''National Ambulance Service (NAS) operates on a national basis and mobilises responses to calls for assistance based on patient needs. Ambulances may travel to and be dispatched from various locations irrespective of their base as they are not confined to work in geographical areas. The deployment model is designed around international best practice and has eliminated previous practices where the nearest ambulance was not always dispatched due to former legacy boundaries.''
The statement went on to say that ''at local level, the NAS is also supported by Community First Responder schemes, responding to particular types of medical emergencies (i.e. cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, chest pain, choking and stroke) where it is essential for the patient to receive immediate life-saving care while an emergency response vehicle is on route to the patient.''
The HSE also said that 80% of calls described as ECHO (Life threatening cardiac or respiratory arrest) and 50% DELTA (life threatening illness or injury, other than cardiac arrest) are subject to response times targets of 18 minutes and 59 seconds or less by a patient carrying vehicle. ''
It said that ''during the first half of 2022, response time targets were impacted by the continuing high demand for our services and new waves of Covid, which for NAS peaked on the weeks of 27 March 2022 and the 18 July 2022. Spikes in demand coupled with Covid related impact on staff availability and the continuing impact of enhanced infection, prevention and control measures continued to combine to undermine our capacity to respond to demand.''