The entire of west Clare was left without emergency ambulance cover for seven hours yesterday because the HSE was unable to staff a vehicle.
Only one paramedic was available for duty for the 8.00am shift and he was later sent to Ennis to undertake other duties.
Over six hours later, it was eventually decided to take the county’s only rapid response vehicle (RRV) off the road and send it’s sole operator back to Kilrush to make up a crew.
Cover in west Clare was finally restored from the Kilrush base at around 3.00pm after being left without an emergency ambulance for 7 hours.
The Clare RRV, which is manned by advanced paramedic’s specially trained in advance life support (ASL), was specifically introduced when the emergency department in Ennis was closed in 2009.
The vehicle was off the road for as many as 20 shifts in July leaving the entire county without the crucial emergency response service.
Kilrush member of Clare County Council Ian Lynch said: “If an ambulance was needed on the Loophead Peninsula, say Kilbaha, thats 35 kilometres from Kilrush alone. If an ambulance had to be sent from Ennis that’s 75 kilometres or 70 from Ennistymon and that’s assuming one of those ambulances was available.”
“If a patient had then to go to Limerick, that’s another 115 kilometres. The so-called ‘golden hour’ would be long since elapsed,” Mr Lynch said.
“It’s time for someone independent to have a serious look at the ambulance service because the HSE are not listening. There have been problems for over a year and nothing has been done. The people of Clare deserve the best possible service,” he added.
On one weekend last month, the HSE left Ennis with just one ambulance to cover the town, surrounding area and incidents as far away as Shannon. There are usually two ambulances based at the Ennis based which covers a catchment area of almost 40,000 people.
The HSE defended that decision saying: “There was no impact on any calls during this period in Ennis. We are committed to maintaining this level of service to the people of the Mid West.”
Also in August, west Clare was left without ambulance cover on a Saturday night when only one paramedic was available for duty.
With Co Clare short up to 19 personnel and morale at an “all time low” paramedics have already warned that “people are going to die”.
Staff have also met with their union representatives and have not ruled out industrial action if the HSE doesn’t make urgent attempts to resolve the serious staffing issues.
In a statement, a spokesman said: “The National Ambulance Service can confirm that there was one NAS staff member on duty this morning for a short period of time in Kilrush (normal complement is two). A staff member was reassigned from another station and Kilrush is now fully operational.”
“The National Ambulance Service operates on a regional and national basis as opposed to a local basis. Resources can be dynamically deployed from areas to incidents or to areas where cover is required,” the statement said.