Group simulates crash to highlight ambulance cuts
Graphic banners, some portraying the HSE as the Grim Reaper, were also used to depict fears over proposed changes.
Local protester Bernard Leamy described how Youghal ambulance had arrived within 15 minutes of being called at 2.45am a weekend previous, after his son Shane, 21, suffered acute pain.
“Under the HSE changes, it might take an hour to arrive but, thanks to Youghal ambulance, he was in the Mercy within the hour,” he said.
Sinn Féin TD Sandra McLellan, Youghal mayor Eoin Coyne and town councillors were amongst the 50-strong gathering that braved an icy wind to protest near the community hospital on Saturday.
The protest comes as the HSE’s prepares to begin implementing changes to the Cork and Kerry ambulance system in east and north Cork early in 2012.
The proposals include replacing overnight on-call paramedics and Youghal’s fixed base ambulance with a ‘roaming’ first responder paramedic car and a non-emergency vehicle, along with a 33% reduction in ambulances in the Cork and Kerry region.
Critics fear emergency ambulances will have long distances to travel and are also unhappy with the HSE’s plans to man rural first responder vehicles with volunteers trained in defibrillator use, in a cost-reducing measure that would also satisfy Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) targets for cardiac responses.
Minister of State for Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock wants any changes postponed prior to further consultation and a phased-in process.
Ms McLellan said the demonstration sent out a strong, clear message.
She agreed with Mayor Coyne and chair of Save Youghal, Labour’s Cllr Tara O’Connell, that there was no objection to abolishing on-call practices or with first responders fully trained to advanced paramedic standards, but only in addition to an ambulance presence “and not instead of it”.
The HSE will meet a Youghal delegation in Naas, Co Kildare tomorrow.
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