THE Labour Court has been asked to adjudicate on a row between SIPTU and the Southern Health Board (SHB), after a Tralee woman who died had been left lying unconscious on the street for a time, although an ambulance was available.
Mrs Margaret Everett, (63), of Kevin Barry Villas, Tralee, who had been attending the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin for a heart complaint, collapsed on January 9th near the Quinnsworth shopping complex in the town. The ambulance centre at Tralee General Hospital was alerted at 4.46 p.m. The ambulance crew arrived at 5.05 p.m. and she reached the hospital four minutes later, where attempts to revive her failed.
Mr Tom Leonard, the hospital administrator, told the Kerryman newspaper, in which the report appeared yesterday, that while a crew and ambulance were available at the time, sending them to assist Mrs Everett would have meant an escalation of the dispute with SIPTU and the possible withdrawal of all ambulance services in Kerry.
The dispute centres on the decision by the health board last year to hire three permanent ambulance drivers to replace three temporary drivers. The Labour Court then ruled that the three temporary personnel should be kept on, without specifying whether this meant as ambulance drivers. SIPTU insisted that the three permanent drivers, who were available on the day of Mrs Everett's collapse, should not be used until the Labour Court had clarified its decision.
According to the SHB, the Labour Court ruling does not mean that the three temporary drivers must be retained in the ambulance service. SIPTU has rejected offers of work for them in other areas of the hospital. The only other ambulance available when Mrs Everett collapsed was bringing a patient from Castleisland to the hospital.