Ambulance services 'in crisis' in Tipp

The ambulance service is in crisis and causing great upset and inconvenience for users in Tipperary, says a local councillor who wants the issue resolved "before somebody dies".

Independent councillor Jim Ryan made his claim when a motion in his name calling for a resolution of "the crisis" was being debated at last Monday's meeting of Tipperary County Council where other councillors also rowed in to expressed their frustrations over the way the service is being run.

In his motion Cllr Ryan called on the council to invite HSE officials to a meeting of the local authority to disucss and address the crisis in the service "as a matter of urgency".

Cllr Ryan told his fellow councillors that the services in Tipperary and elsehwere was currently operating "at crisis point".

He said he had held talks with ambulance crews who informed him that they were being called out of Tipperary to service several other counties, including Galway, Wicklow, Wexford and Clare.

Cllr Ryan said there was a recent 999 emergency call incident where no ambulance crew was available to respond to an incident in the county. This resulted in an ambulance having to be called from Donegal to deal with the situation.

He said "the current disptach system" under which the ambulance service was being run was not working.

He related a separate incident where a crew were 90 seconds away from an "emergency" patient, but were instructed to instead divert to a call 50 kilometres away.

He claimed when the crew queried this they were instructed that an ambulance that was 40 kilometres away would respond to the emergency in whose locality they were just a minute and a half away from.

Cllr Ryan said ambulance crews had also had to take substantial pay cuts during the last recession that were never restored and their trade union was not recognised by the HSE.

"It is extremely hard to get people to join the ambulance service because of the working conditions," he said.

Cllr Ryan said off-duty crew members were "constantly getting text messages" to report for work they were not scheduled for due to a lack of staff in the service.

He added: "This is crazy and it's only getting worse. The situation should not longer be swept under the carpet.

"It's absloute madness and someone is going to die as a result. The HSE need to listen to crews on the ground."

Cllr Mairín McGrath revealed that she had spoken to paramedics in Clonmel and it was "unbelieveable to think how chaoitc the service is".

She said she had heard of an incident of a crew member in Tipperary being just 15 minutes from finishing a shift, only to receive an instruction to respond to a call in West Cork.

"Crews are totally over-worked and shifts are going way beyond what they should be," said Cllr McGrath.

Roscrea councillor Shane Lee told of a recent case where it took an ambulance three hours to arrive at the home of a woman who had broken her hip in Limerick Street in the town. "It's an absolute disgrace," he said.

He instanced another case where an ambulance travelled from Tallaght in Dublin to Roscrea to respond to a local incident.

Cllr John Carroll, a member of the HSE Mid West grouping, said he would raise the concerns outlined by councillors at the next meeting of that body.