Ambulance delays: ‘It was 30 hours before my son reached the hospital’

An increase in emergency calls means some ambulance waiting times have posed a challenge in recent times. For the people affected by the delays, they only exacerbate the stress of illness.

Sylvia White experienced it first-hand when her 14-year-old son started having sudden-onset seizures.

He underwent an MRI in Waterford hospital in October and was then referred to Cork University Hospital (CUH).

However, when they arrived in Cork, Ms White was told that he had a brain tumour and needed to attend the neurology department in Temple Street, Dublin.

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“I arrived in Cork at 5.30pm, I spoke with the doctor, and she told me we needed to go straight up to Temple Street. He needed to have surgery straight away. An ambulance would take us, as soon as one was available,” she said.

I know there are other people waiting for ambulances but at that point when it's your child and you don't know what's going to happen, that's not good enough

It was almost 30 hours later before they were finally en route to the capital.

“It was 3.30am on Thursday morning that we eventually got into Temple Street, after arriving into Cork at 5.30pm on Tuesday,” she told The Irish Times.

“I didn’t get to speak to the doctor until the following morning at 9.30am. That was the first time I properly got to speak to someone about what was going to happen to my child.”

Ms White said she had asked the hospital if she could transfer her son to Dublin by car, but was told she couldn’t because he was having seizures and needed continued medical care.

“This is a worst-case scenario for a family: a 14-year-old child with a brain tumour waiting to get to Dublin to be operated on,” she said.

“I know there are other people waiting for ambulances but at that point when it’s your child and you don’t know what’s going to happen, that’s not good enough.”

‘Particular challenge’

Ms White is not the only person who has experienced lengthy wait times for ambulances. A Sinn Féin motion on the issue was debated in the Dáil recently, with TDs detailing often-lengthy delays in their constituencies.

Speaking in response, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said "the wait times for lower-acuity, non-life-threatening calls have presented a particular challenge recently", due to an increased number of calls.

According to recent figures, an ambulance turned up to a life-threatening event over an hour after being called on more than 300 occasions over the first six months of the year.

A spokeswoman for the HSE said there has been an increase in staff numbers for the National Ambulance Service (NAS) every year since 2015. However, she said the demand for the services also increased during this time.

“At this time, the level of demand now exceeds the levels experienced in 2019, ie pre-pandemic. As demand can exceed available resources, 999 calls are clinically triaged and prioritised to ensure that those patients with life-threatening injuries or conditions receive the fastest response possible,” she said.

“If a 999 call is not time-critical, then during busy periods these calls will wait longer for a response.”

Ted Kenny, industrial organiser from Siptu's health division, details a situation in which an ambulance was dispatched to Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula from Castletownbere in Co Cork, about 2½ hours away, as there were no available vehicles closer to that location.

The situation is a result of the combined impact of staff shortages and delays transferring patients into crowded hospitals, he added.

‘Horrendous’

Last month, Alan Clarke was waiting for more than two hours for an ambulance for his two-year-old son Jax who had become unwell with croup, a childhood condition that affects the windpipe and the airways to the lungs.

“It was horrendous watching him struggling to breathe. We were going to cancel it and drive him in ourselves, but the woman advised us not to,” he said.

Mr Clarke said that when the ambulance did arrive, they learned that it had been dispatched from Co Monaghan to their house in Dunboyne, Co Meath.

“Thankfully, Jax’s condition didn’t fall off a cliff, but if it was someone with a different condition that every minute counts, then that is too far to travel,” he added.

Pamela Wilkes, the sister of Sinn Féin TD Paul Donnelly, is the full-time carer for her 85-year-old mother, Bridget Donnelly. She called for an ambulance just after 1pm one day last month as her mother had developed an infection.

Ms Donnelly, who is at increased risk for sepsis, has no mobility, and Ms Wilkes said it is “very difficult” to move her, particularly when she is ill.

“We really rely on the ambulance when she gets sick. I rang for an ambulance at three minutes past one. It was nearly 6.30pm before they came,” she said.

Ms Wilkes said when she was speaking to the paramedics, they told her that they had been sitting outside Mater Hospital for several hours, waiting for their previous patient to be taken off the vehicle's stretcher due to a lack of available beds.

“It’s not their fault. It’s a systemic issue,” she said. “It’s absolutely outrageous.”