Sir, – With regard to the article by Kitty Holland ("Ambulance turnaround times well short of targets", Front Page, June 9th), in which it was stated ambulances were delayed by up to six hours outside emergency departments, we would like to clarify the circumstances that can keep an ambulance off the road for long periods of time.
To date there have been no issues or unacceptable delays with regard to accepting patients from ambulances into the Temple Street, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin or Tallaght paediatric emergency departments and the departments have been within their target times.
The issue relates to how the statistics were interpreted in the article. The figures quoted were not in fact for emergency turnaround times but rather figures for all urgent ambulances that transfer children to Temple Street, Crumlin and Tallaght paediatric emergency departments and the length of time that these ambulances are unavailable during that transfer period due to operational requirements, such as when an ambulance is required to transport a newborn baby in an incubator from a maternity hospital to the operating theatre or intensive-care unit in Temple Street or Crumlin emergency departments. In this instance the ambulance crew then has to go back to the maternity hospital and deposit the incubator and collect its ambulance trolley before this ambulance is deemed available.
In “wait and return” situations, an ambulance is required to transport a baby from another hospital for urgent ultrasound or radiology at Temple Street or Crumlin, then the ambulance crew waits in case the baby has to be transferred back, and so again that ambulance is deemed unavailable until a decision about which hospital to admit to is made
This means that the “wait” times referred to in the article are not the times that the ambulance is waiting outside the three paediatric emergency departments but rather the time that the ambulance is unavailable. – Yours, etc,
MONA BAKER,
Chief Executive,
Dr IKECHUKWU OKAFOR,
Paediatric Emergency
Medicine Consultant,
Temple Street Children’s
University Hospital;
LORCAN BIRTHISTLE,
Chief Executive,
Dr SEAN WALSH,
Chairman,
Medical Board of
Our Lady’s Children’s
Hospital Crumlin;
DAVID SLEVIN,
Chief Executive,
Tallaght Hospital;
Dr CIARA MARTIN,
Paediatric Emergency
Medicine Consultant,
National Children’s
Hospital, Tallaght.