It has a DFB ambulance for the last couple of years, which like all other DFB ambulances are extremely busy 24 hours a day, with the engines never getting a chance to cool down

Steve, it’s not just dfb ambulances that are busy ya know….. HSE NAS crews are the same (in my area anyway). Shifts being left uncovered mean we rarely in the station, just constantly on the road on calls….

Rodrigo it would be useful if you read and absorbed the facts before you jump into the attack completely in the wrong. The change in roster comes from an improvement in the working hours of Ambulance personnel and an agreement that the necessary coverage can be handled within the overall Service …which mean Fire Service ambulances etc. both parties to the agreement confirmed that the necessary coverage would be available and the next thing you’re screaming about bondholders!
Maybe you need an ambulance?

HSE doctors and nurses are already pushed to the limits. The amount they get paid is in relation to the amount of work they do, which is mahoosive. Please don’t bash the staff on the frontline.

Along with a Cuban Model of tax?

I spoke to a nurse here a few years ago who travelled to Cuba and she told me that although they have free health care in Cuba there is a lack of medical supplies or equipment. So while Fidel and his cronies get the best of care his people get nothing.

I’ll think u’ll find the lack of medical supplies more to do with the massive sanctions on Cuba although i dont doubt that the people in power avail of it more. Same in every country in the world.

Derek, that’s true about the sanctions but that shouldn’t stop Fidel’s buddy Hugo Chavez helping out or Russia in the past.

Hugo does help where he can, just like the fact he supplies cheap oil to disadvantaged areas of the US.

Firstly I sincerely hope your friends child was ok in the end. I’m sorry to hear this. If the call was from central Dublin that ‘operator’ would have been a paramedic and usually a fire engine with paramedics on board would have been sent to stabilise that child until an ambulance was available. A service unique to Dublin. I find it strange if this didn’t happen.

unfortunately no one was sent until the ambulance arrived half hour later we where told we’d have to wait for the ambulance as they where on another call which was of priority because the other person was unconscious where as baby was having a seizure but still conscious the he became un responsive and I had to call back again the lady i was talking to was no help to be honest another parent who was in the park who had first aid helped us till the ambulance arrived!

unfortunately no one was sent until the ambulance arrived half hour later we where told we’d have to wait for the ambulance as they where on another call which was of priority because the other person was unconscious where as baby was having a seizure but still conscious the he became un responsive and I had to call back again the lady i was talking to was no help to be honest another parent who was in the park who had first aid helped us till the ambulance arrived!

What exactly do you think the national ambulance service do all day every day? It’s highly insulting to paramedics who work their arses off every day around the country for the public to state that dfb are the only emergency service that are doing a good job…….

(dfb do a great job in my opinion by the way)

Plus you sound like a voluntary ambulance member who’s bitter because they couldn’t get into the hse…..
Voluntary ambulance services on call are not the way forward for pre hospital care… Most volunteers aren’t trained to a high enough level to respond to emergency calls! Theyre place is first aid and that’s the way it should stay!

@Nocturnal: I think you took me up wrong there. I think the HSE paramedics do a great job, my point is there aren’t enough of them. I think that the extra service the dublin fire brigade do though is vital because the HSE can’t do everything themselves. If the HSE had the vehicles and the staff, as well as the money to be the sole providers, I’m all for that! But as it stands they’re not, which is my complaint.

Also, no interest in healthcare, I’m a lawyer, I did volunteer with St.John’s when I was in the UK studying though. And I agree, the PHEC council in Ireland aren’t training the voluntaries high enough in Ireland at the moment to provide for front line care. The current EMT in Ireland is only the same training as responders in England. But there doesn’t have to be emergency calls all the time, and often you’ll probably agree, there are a lot of minor or calls that don’t need paramedic expertise.

It just seems that Ireland could use a more liberal and modern approach to out of hospital healthcare. By utilising alternative care methods out there in conjunction with the HSE to provide the best service.

But psychologicaly could all those deal with the tragic accidents and emergencies the professional has to deal with? i don’t think so.

@Les…. could psychological an Air Ambulance with a registrar in Emergency Medicine and a flight paramedic deal with trauma …? ….. Yes.

I apologise if I took you up wrong tobilas….

Although there are plenty calls that are non emergency in nature I don’t think voluntary ambulance services responding to them are the way forward… I wouldn’t like to see a time when unpaid volunteers are responding to 999 calls… I think a treat and discharge system similar to the uk is the way forward, where a paramedic will respond to the call and if the patient does not need to be treated in the emergency department they will be treated on scene or referred to the appropriate clinic or gp etc….
I also agree with you regarding first responder schemes with defibs in rural communities…. This will save lives no doubt!!

@Nocturnal, I agree with you absolutely, I would not want volunteers responding to 112 calls. I think people are talking me up wrong when I mentioned that.

All healthcare providers will know about the golden hour for treatment, but paramedics know better than anyone else, this real is a platinum 10 minutes in pre-hospital situations. Ireland is meant to have an 8 minute response time, as CPR needs to be administer in the first 2 minutes, and once someone is down with Cardiac arrest for longer than 10 minutes, there chances of survival are minimal.

This is why I don’t believe that community responders should be limited to rural areas. Having voluntaries or community responders available in cities as well, to get to a person within less than 10 minutes, if a HSE ambulance will be delayed could save someones life. So to have these services to be there BEFORE hse paramedics would be a great benefit. I would hope that no volunteer would ever go out solely to a 112 call, but because time is so essential, to use resources to have care in the intermittent period I can see as no harm at all, and there are people out there willing to do this for free.

I dont mean to plug, but http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/what-we-do/community-first-responders.aspx I think is a great programme that would go learn from and use some aspects in Ireland.

Sinn fein.

Or maybe Mr Quinn could pay us back some of his gambling debts

Plenty of ambulances and doctors and nurses for 2.6billion.

and we could have real summers like we use to have. Oh then we will be charged sunshine tax, its a bit like taxing the home ,only less profitable in Ireland.