Emergency medics appeal to patients not to call ambulances

The National Ambulance Service has said 'life-threatening calls receive an immediate and appropriate response'.

Emergency medics are appealing to the public not to call ambulances unless "absolutely necessary", warning of dangerously overstretched services. 

Emergency medicine consultant Dr Peadar Gilligan told the Irish Examiner that emergency departments are expecting a "very, very challenging winter".

He appealed for people to think twice before calling for an ambulance.

“I would certainly appeal to the population not to call an ambulance where it isn't absolutely necessary,” he said.

For every ambulance callout it means that others are delayed in receiving treatments of patients who, for example, suffer major trauma, heart attacks, strokes, and those who are seriously unwell with infection.

“The ability of the ambulance service to deliver timely care to those patients is compromised."

Nurse Moira Wynne, an Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation rep who also works in Beaumont Hospital, says some patients treat the ambulance service "almost like a taxi service".

"Experts in their field of pre-hospital care, as paramedics are, need to be able to say actually no, you don't need to travel to the hospital in an ambulance today."

“Things are crazy now, and then we're heading into winter, which is always another brand of crazy, and I don't know how emergency departments nationally are going to cope with that," she said.

“I think we've really at the start of a perfect storm.

“And that storm is only going to get bigger and stronger as we come into the winter.”

The National Ambulance Service [NAS] says: “Life-threatening calls receive an immediate and appropriate response, while lower acuity calls may have to wait until a resource becomes available.

“In recent weeks, the NAS [continues] to experience a surge in demand for services at a time when staff are also working hard to support Covid related swabbing and vaccinations."