TD criticises campaign ‘scaremongering’
Jim Daly, a Fine Gael TD for Cork South West, launched his blistering attack last night as the West Cork SOS group finalised plans for the four-day march from Skibbereen to Cork University Hospital (CUH).
“I have examined the proposals by the HSE in great detail and I am fully confident that these changes will lead to improved response times to emergencies, an increase in the number of paramedics working in West Cork, and a superior transport system for patients,” Mr Daly said.
The proposed charges will ensure no paramedic has to work a 17-hour shift, which led to an ambulance crash last week, he added.
“These changes cannot come quickly enough as far as I am concerned,” he said. “The people behind the campaign to ‘resist change’ are demonstrating absolute recklessness and have proven themselves to be completely opportunistic.”
The HSE wants to move from an on-call system to an on-duty system which it says will ensure the ambulance service meets Hiqa guidelines on response times.
The new system will see paramedics rostered on-duty 24/7, 365 days a year, with ambulances and rapid response vehicles being strategically located.
But the West Cork SOS group say the changes will result in the loss of one of the four ambulances on call in the region, from 8pm to 8am.
They pointed to last Friday’s accident involving an exhausted ambulance crew, who had worked a 22-hour shift, and another incident last month where a man drove himself 16km to the Skibbereen Health Centre where he had a heart attack. He had to be revived four times before an ambulance arrived 70 minutes later.
They will escalate their campaign today, beginning a four-day march to CUH.
“It is hoped that this demonstration passing through the West Cork towns and arriving at the CUH will alert our people to their danger, and the citizens of Cork to our and their plight, since sicker, delayed patients being delivered into a depleted hospital service in the city must lower the quality of healthcare for all,” a West Cork SOS spokesman said.
Gardaí have told them they cannot push a stretcher on the road from the outskirts of the city to a rally outside CUH on Saturday.
A Garda spokesman said the campaigners are entitled to protest, but cannot obstruct a national primary road, and create a potential hazard for themselves and road users.
He said gardaí also had concerns about the potential impact of the march on emergency vehicle or ambulance access to Munster’s largest trauma centre.
“Our concerns are purely on health and safety grounds,” the Garda spokesman said.
The HSE has already introduced the on-duty system in east Cork.
The HSE said it is evaluating it and said there will be no changes in West Cork without further public consultation.
