Ambulance sent on 400km round trip for Letterkenny-Stranorlar transfer

An ambulance was dispatched from Castlebar to transfer a patient from Letterkenny University Hospital to St Joseph’s Community Hospital in Stranorlar.

The ambulance was sent on a 400km round trip from Castlebar to Letterkenny to take the patient just over 20km to Stranorlar.

The anecdote was told at a public meeting on Thursday night by a former employee at Letterkenny University Hospital who said working in the facility ‘seemed like I was imprisoned’.

Paddy McGowan was the chief clinical engineer and spent the best part of 40 years working in Letterkenny hospital.

Woman underwent €21,000 surgery in Spain due to delays in Letterkenny

The woman, who said she was close to a nervous breakdown, had to borrow money to have critical surgery and said: 'I am still angry. I could have died.'

“A patient was waiting to go back to St Joseph’s after being taken over,” Mr McGowan said. “The discharge and so on would have taken the crew half-an-hour beyond the schedule end of their shift. So, they rang headquarters and they were told to finish their shift and just go on.

“An ambulance was then sent from Castlebar to take the man back to St Joseph’s.”

Mr McGowan spoke at the public meeting, which was organised to hear concerns over services at the hospital.

“In the early years, I really enjoyed the work and wanted to go to work,” the Ballybofey native said. “Back in the 1980s, when money was a lot less plentiful, we got more done as everyone was joined together.”

He told how mental health supports are lacking for the staff and accountability is the ‘key’ to finding solutions.

He said: “I was on call one night and was in the emergency department waiting room at 3am. There was one person in the room and I overheard them making a call, saying there was a six-hour delay. They were the only person in the room.

“Accountability is the key here. A lot of people ask who the boss is and you hear that it’s so and so. The boss is the general public - you are their boss.

“Letterkenny University Hospital can’t be a centre of excellence for everything, but things like breast care and cardiac services need upgraded. You can’t get a stent in Letterkenny, but there is a state-of-the-art cardiac categorisation unit, which was funded by the Friends of Letterkenny Hospital.

“If one is unlucky enough to require a pacemaker, there is only allocated funding for pacemaking for nine months of the year.

“There is so much money being pumped into health and being gobbled up. How much money would be enough? No amount of money is enough.”