A 51-year-old vet from Monaghan has claimed he would have died if he had not been treated at the local hospital after suffering a massive haemorrhage.
Mr Joe McMahon lives with his wife and family just three minutes from Monaghan General Hospital which was taken off call by the North Eastern Health Board last July - all emergencies are taken to another hospital in the region on call.
He claimed that if his wife had not insisted he be treated in Monaghan hospital and he had instead been taken on a 45 minute ambulance ride to Cavan hospital, "I have no doubt I would have died."
Local TD, Mr Paudge Connolly, said the health board should have learned their lesson after the deaths of baby Bronagh Livingstone and Christina Knox.
Mr McMahon said his condition was so serious when he arrived at Monaghan hospital that he needed four litres of fluid and had to be wrapped in special thermal blankets. If he had been taken to Cavan General Hospital it could have been another 30 or 40 minutes before he got treatment, he claimed.
"There is no way I would have made it to Cavan hospital, I had collapsed and was semi-conscious and losing blood.
"The ambulance crew would not have been able to put me on a drip and give me the fluids I needed straight away," he claimed.
"By going to Monaghan I had the fluids as soon as possible and did not have to suffer a journey that can last up to an hour and takes you over bad roads," he said from his home at Silverstream outside Monaghan town.
His ordeal started just after midnight on Wednesday last when he woke in his bed to find himself in a pool of blood.
He was in such a critical condition that his wife demanded he be brought to the nearest hospital and within an hour he had started to come around. It emerged he had suffered an intestinal haemorrhage and needed to have his lost fluids replaced as soon as possible.
His wife said her distress was increased as she did not know which hospital was on call, it happened to be Cavan, but it could have been Drogheda or Dundalk and she did not know where her husband could have ended up.
Mr Paudge Connolly told this month's meeting of the health board that the case was an example of the need to have Monaghan Hospital available.
"His life was saved there, he would have been dead otherwise," he claimed.
The chief executive of the board said it was taken off call on the advice of consulting staff at the hospital and the medical adviser. He said that in an emergency, the physician on call at the hospital would decide the best treatment.