Paramedics: Government playing with people’s lives

The head of the group which represents paramedics has accused the Government of playing Russian roulette with peoples’ lives through its reorganisation of the ambulance service.

Michael Dickson, chairman of the National Ambulance Service Representative Association, spoke out yesterday after claims that there was no ambulance available to take little Vakaris Marinaitis, who was badly injured after falling from an upstairs window at his home in East Cork, to hospital.

A neighbour of the boy, former Cork hurling star Kevin Hennessy, rushed the toddler and his father, Vidas, to Cork University Hospital, where Vakaris died on Wednesday.