The Minister for Health has infuriated campaigners for a proper ambulance service in North Connemara – by indicating that the only practical way to improve ambulance response times in rural areas was to do it themselves.

Simon Harris suggested that the best option was through voluntary community first-responders, in replying to Galway West Deputy Eamon Ó Cuív.

BY TIM RYAN

He said the Minister recently met a delegation from Connemara to discuss the ambulance service.

“I was surprised to get a reply from him telling me that the solution to the rural areas ambulance problem is a do-it-yourself job of voluntary responders,” he said.

“It seems to me to be a shocking response. I am not against volunteerism, but I do not see why rural people are always expected to do the DIY job when urban people rightly expect it to be done properly,” he said.

In response, Minister Simon Harris said ambulance turnaround times measure the time interval from ambulance arrival at a hospital, to when the crew is ready to accept another call.

“When the emergency care system is under pressure, there is the potential for delay in the transfer of care of patients from ambulance to emergency department personnel,” he said.

“I accept that in a number of hospitals, including those highlighted in the individual questions, the emergency departments are particularly busy and this can contribute significantly to delays in ambulance turnaround.”

Minister Harris did tell Deputy Ó Cuív that he was determined to make sure that people throughout this country, regardless of whether they live in rural or urban areas, get better access to ambulances in a more timely manner is by investing in the national ambulance service.

“That is what we are doing. The €7.2 million of extra funding in 2016 for the service will be supplemented by a further €3.6 million, including another €1 million for new developments.”

In order to meet HIQA response times, because of the demographic layout of this country the Minister said he was going to need to continue to see additional contributions from community first-responders.

“They are doing a superb job around this country, as the Deputy has acknowledged, but with the best will in the world, even as we continue to increase ambulances, as we are going to do, and continue to increase the number of paramedics, which we are doing, we still require community first-responders to help support rural Ireland. It is not just rural Ireland but urban Ireland as well,” he added.

Separately the Connemara Ambulance Crisis Steering Group expressed their ‘disgust’ at a separate Dail response on the issue – this time to Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald – on the issue.

She asked the Minister to outline his plans to address the issue – including a response to the group’s own suggestion to base an ambulance in an empty Garda barracks.

But Minister Harris said that this was ‘a service mater’ and he would get the HSE to response directly to Deputy McDonald.

“We are furious at this lack of response to the seriousness of the matter and at the treatment dished out to the people living in North West Connemara – and indeed to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to Connemara annually, some of whom will definitely need an ambulance,” said Patricia Keane, on behalf of the North West Connemara Ambulance Crisis Steering Group.

“Enough is enough – it is time we, as a group, became more serious in our campaign. This is, after all, a basic human right to which we are being denied,” she added.

The Steering Group have been campaigning for over two and a half years for an improvement in their ambulance service which has been known to leave patients waiting two to three hours for an ambulance from call-out time to time of arrival at patient.

The Group met with Leo Varadkar when he was Minister for Health, with the HSE, the Red Cross, local TDs and more recently with the present Minister Simon Harris as well.