Hospital downgrade will cost lives annually

UP to a dozen lives will be lost each year in one county alone if a general hospital is downgraded and patients are forced to travel up to 80 miles to get to the nearest casualty department, an ambulance worker has warned.

The Hanly Report proposes downgrading 13 smaller hospitals and concentrating accident and emergency services in regional centres.

The government blueprint for the development of the health service also demands greater efficiency, response times and medical expertise from ambulance staff. However, an ambulance man with 30 years experience says lives will be lost en route to major hospitals.

He says, in the past year, 12 lives have been saved because emergency cases have been stabilised at Ennis general hospital in Co Clare, before being transferred to Limerick.

“It’s hard enough for us to go out and deal with emergencies and get people back here to Ennis so that they can be stabilised, without passing out this hospital and facing a further 26 mile journey to Limerick,” said Ennis-based emergency response technician (EMT) Frank O’Malley.

“It is unthinkable that you could pass a facility after 40 or 50 miles, only to have to head further down the road with a critically ill patient.

"There are dozens of people who owe their lives to Ennis. They shouldn’t be talking about scaling it down. All we need is a CT scanner and we will be able to provide a full compliment of services here,” said the 60-year-old.

The Hanly report does not take into account the remoteness of many parts of rural Ireland, he said. “It’s fine for people above in Dublin to be drawing up these plans. They are within 20 minutes of any hospital, whatever way they turn. Places like Loop Head are 80 miles from Limerick.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that, as part of the centralisation of services outlined in the Hanly report, the ambulance service was to be boosted and EMTs would get extra training.

“It’s not a question of just having the same ambulance service. It will be greatly enhanced. A lot of the major traumas go directly to Limerick in any case and we would not agree that lives will be lost,” said the spokesman.

Ambulance personnel will also have to undergo major training and their whole job description will change before the service outlined in the health reform plan can be delivered, say other people working in the service.

The nation’s 1,000 or so emergency medical technicians will have to be trained to become emergency medical paramedics. And they will have to give injections and administer drips in the future, work which they do not carry out, said SIPTU’s senior organiser for health in Dublin, Paul Bell.

“EMTs can’t carry out invasive procedures such as injections. Some of our members have gone to the US, Germany and Scandanavia to get certified as emergency medical paramedics.

“If the Hanly report is to be implemented, then all 800 to 1,000 EMTs around the country will have to get this training,” he said.