Browne highlights Tipp ambulance crisis in the Dáil
Tipperary people face double obstacle in ambulance and emergency department crisis as National Ambulance Service says there is a need for 1000 additional staff.
Speaking in the Dáil this week, Tipperary Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne highlighted how ambulance personnel and ill citizens in Co Tipperary are being failed at all points by an imploding health service.
Teachta Browne was speaking after an elderly woman waited from 1.40pm until 7.40pm one Saturday for an ambulance, and then a further 10 hours on a hospital trolley when she finally arrived at hospital.
Teachta Browne said: “This is an issue that is being replicated across Co Tipperary and across the region. Our ambulance service personnel are working all hours under huge pressure. They are understaffed, with huge demands being made of them.
“When they arrive at emergency departments they are further delayed because of the pressure our hospitals are under to cope with the number of people who have to wait on trolleys at our emergency departments.
“This is failing people who fall ill and is having a profound and disturbing impact on the provision of healthcare, and I told that to the Taoiseach in no uncertain terms.
“But the facts speak for themselves. I have been told by the National Ambulance Service (NAS) that since 2015, demand on the NAS has increased at a rate of at least 3.4% per year, representing and overall increase of 20% demand upon the service.
“5% of emergency ambulance capacity is lost due to delays in handover at Emergency Departments which are bursting at the seams.
“The capacity of the National Ambulance Service was last reviewed in 2014. The NAS has told me that in the meantime they have commissioned an independent analysis of demand and capacity, but at this time they ‘estimate a requirement for an additional 90 emergency ambulances on duty every day which reflects a requirement for approx. 1000 extra staff.
“The Taoiseach needs to stop repeating his mantra about frameworks that were developed in the past and instead deal with the crisis that is developing on the ground in the here and now and realise the need for an urgent review of Ireland’s ambulance service.”