Athlone ambulance cover ‘a life or death’ issue

A local councillor, who suffered a cardiac arrest back in 2017, and whose life was saved by a defibrillator, is warning that a lack of ambulance cover in Athlone will cost lives unless it's addressed urgently.

Cllr John Dolan is hugely critical of the lack of a proper ambulance service in Athlone over the recent Bank Holiday weekend, saying there was just one ambulance available on Saturday and none on Sunday.

“If what happened to me, happened last Sunday (of the Bank Holiday weekend) I wouldn't be here, it's that simple. It's life or death,” says the Fine Gael local representative, who has been highlighting the problem since 2019 when he raised the issue directly with ambulance service management when they addressed a council meeting.

“At that time there was only one ambulance available at times to cover the Athlone area and cover was often provided from Roscommon or Birr or even further away,” he says of the lack of cover problems back in 2019. “This, at the time led to engagement with management and staff of the service in 2019, where an agreed and improved roster was to be implemented in September 2019,” adds the Kilgarvan-based public representative, but this never happened.

“Unfortunately this improved roster has not been implemented, and as recently as the August Bank holiday weekend, we had only one ambulance available on Saturday and no ambulance on Sunday in Athlone because of the lack of staff to cover the shifts.

“This is nothing short of a disgrace and I am saying here and now that lives will be lost, not because of shortage of ambulances but because of management not providing staff to man the service,” he complains, claiming that Athlone ambulances are being sent to deal with calls as far away as Kilkenny and Dundalk.

“I am living proof that a functioning ambulance saves lives because the service got to me quickly and gave me a chance for which I will be eternally grateful,” he says in tribute to local ambulance staff, who are based in Blyry.

“But when you have Athlone ambulances doing calls in Dundalk and Kilkenny leaving Athlone with no ambulance lives are going to be lost. There have to be at least three ambulances on call fully manned at all times in Athlone to give patients a chance of survival when something like a cardiac arrest happens like myself, but if you are waiting for an ambulance to come from Roscommon or Birr you don’t stand a chance,” he warns, calling on ambulance service management to “get their act together” and provide the town with the service it deserves.

On hearing that €50,000 has been rubberstamped in this year’s HSE Capital Plan to relocate the town’s ambulance base from Blyry to Clonbrusk, Cllr Dolan says that health authorities need to get the priorities right.

The funding will be used to procure a design team for the project with a view to starting on the preliminary design by the end of the year. The new ambulance base will be located on a site adjacent to the Athlone Primary Care Centre in Clonbrusk.

In a statement, the HSE said all calls to the National Ambulance Service (NAS) are triaged and responded to appropriately.

"The nearest and most appropriate response is dispatched with the most urgent calls prioritised. The ambulance service operates on a national basis and mobilises responses to calls for assistance based on patient needs, ambulances may travel to various locations irrespective of their base as they are not confined to work in geographical areas.

"The call taking/dispatch function is operated by the National Ambulance Service National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) which operates across two sites, Dublin and Ballyshannon. NEOC utilises Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System (AMPDS) using international standards in triaging and prioritising emergency calls.

"NEOC dynamically deploys resources to areas where cover is required or to respond to incidents as they arise to ensure the nearest available resource responds to emergencies. This system ensures that life-threatening calls receive an immediate and appropriate response, while lower acuity calls may have to wait until a resource becomes available."

The HSE said a key target in the HSE’s National Service Plan 2021 is that the majority of ambulance calls to life threatening incidents (ECHO and DELTA calls) are responded to in 18 minutes and 59 seconds or less.

"This target was reached in the majority of calls last year. The National Ambulance Service expects to respond to a national total of 360,000 call outs this year," the statement ended.

The Athlone specific questions asked by the Westmeath Independent were not answered in the HSE statement.