People die as Cabinet dally

PEOPLE are dying because of government failure to pass legislation that would allow ambulance crews administer life-saving drugs.

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) are unable to carry out advanced life-support procedures four years after a government strategy urged legislation to allow them do so.

The Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC), a government agency set up in 2000 to oversee the development of the ambulance service, said we are 20 years behind our UK and US equivalents.

“The reality is your life can depend upon the side of the Border you live on. People living in the North have the benefit of paramedics who can administer life-saving drugs and pain-control measures. Currently the survival rate is very poor here for cardiac arrest patients who do not receive emergency life-saving drugs,” said PHECC programme development officer Pauline Dempsey.

PHECC has developed a training programme to bring EMTs up to paramedic level, but without the necessary legislation, the training cannot take place. The six-month course will only train 20 EMTs at a time, meaning an extremely long roll-out period.

“It took the UK up to 10 years to reach 50% saturation and they started in 1987. We have a long way to go,” Ms Dempsey said.

The lack of legislation meant six firefighters sent by Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) to the US two years ago for a year’s training to become paramedics were unable to use their new skills here.

“They are qualified up to the eyeballs, but we cannot use them and we are very concerned about that,” said DFB SIPTU representative Tony McDonnell. DFB responded to 96,000 emergency calls last year.

The PHECC programme would let advanced EMTs (equivalent to a paramedic), administer clot-busting drugs in heart attack and stroke patients during what Mr McDonnell called “the golden hour”.

Irish Heart Foundation medical director Dr Vincent Maher said the earlier patients could be treated, the more lives would be saved, but he said any additional actions of EMTs would first need expert approval.

“The danger is, if someone is inappropriately trained, it could do harm. But given the pressure doctors and nurses are under, I do think EMTs should be better equipped than merely providing transportation.”

Mr Derek Barton, Consultant in Emergency Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital, said he welcomed the PHECC initiative, but there would have to be some accountability if drugs were wrongly administered.

PHECC experts drew up strict clinical practice guidelines to govern new responsibilities given to EMTs, said Ms Dempsey.

Health Minister Micheál Martin will announce details of the new advanced EMT training programme in the South Court Hotel in Limerick tonight.