Ambulance whistleblower expects backlash from HSE chiefs

An ambulance service whistleblower who appeared on RTÉ’s Prime Time show on call-out delays expects the HSE to act against her.

Shirley McEntee, an ambulance controller in Limerick, said: “I am not going to get away with this free, at all. No, definitely not.”

She said ambulance crews in the Mid-West were “run ragged” and “going without food for hours” trying to respond to patients, because of a lack of ambulances.

Ms McEntee, a trained paramedic, said she would be concerned as to how the ambulance service would contend with a major emergency in the region as well as dealing with day-to-day emergency call-outs.

“[Concerned?] I would say so, definitely. The crews would manage it, the lads are great, but there is still not enough vehicles to cover an emergency. If a plane crashed — there is definitely not enough ambulances for it,” she told Live95FM.

“There’s only two crews on a Monday and Tuesday night in Limerick. There’s no such thing as peak time. It could be a Sunday afternoon at 2pm or it could be 2am in the morning. It could be anytime. You can’t really give a peak time for an emergency service.”

Currently on sick leave, she is due to return to work next week. However, she fears a serious backlash from management for going public about her allegations the service is completely overstretched. “They’re going to get me back. I know they are. I’ll just have to wait and see what they’re going to do to me.”

Asked if she expected retaliation for airing her concerns publicly, Ms McEntee said: “Oh, I’d say so yeah, definitely. I’m not going to get away with this free at all. No. Definitely not.”

She had not heard from management since her appearance on Prime Time but she received support from co-workers.

“ I’ve heard from all my colleagues who have rang me and texted me and they’re delighted. It’s time that the paramedics and advanced paramedics got someone to stick up for them, because they’re brilliant at their jobs. They train a lot, and they want more training. They work very, very, hard. They don’t get official lunch breaks, they mightn’t get anything to eat for hours. They just need a bit of praise as well.”

She said the situation of late response times for ambulance call-outs in Limerick was “serious enough”.

“There wouldn’t be a day that would go past that you wouldn’t be stuck somewhere [for an ambulance] . . . going ‘Oh God, we’ve no ambulances to send there’. It would happen once everyday anyway, and it could happen a lot in the day. You could have five ambulances sitting outside the door and you mightn’t get one call for five or six hours, but then one call could take those five ambulances.”

She said she could not say, for legal reasons, if people had died because of ambulances getting to them late.

However, she said agency workers, and a newly implemented crewing system, employed by management, helped alleviate pressure on frontline staff but the service remained overstretched.