There have been various occasions in the past few years where people have died on the streets of Drogheda because of either a lack of ambulances in Drogheda or because of a failure on behalf of the HSE.
Clearly, the issue is that in such a large town, with a large number of people, we have only 2 ambulances at our service. We need to increase our ambulance services in Drogheda and the HSE need to improve how they handle such situations so we do not have people dying on the streets of Drogheda. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible and isn’t going to happen, with all the cuts to our health service.
Good old Gerald Nash though, lets hold an expensive inquiry to find out what we in Drogheda already know and then not do anything about it.

I hope if i am ever lying on the ground dying that the ambulance crew take the time to press a button so the response time statistics are correct.

How dare you dave Wallace. I am a paramedic with the hse ambulance service. The only people who can push those buttons are the two paramedics in the ambulance. Do you really believe we give a sh*t about getting more staff or fiddling the numbers when we’re in the middle of a call? I know for a fact that 99% of the time the buttons are pressed at the right time. The odd time it is pressed but the signal doesn’t go through to the computers and the odd time the paramedics forget to press it when they arrive at scene. Not because they are trying to Cook the books but because they have better things to be worrying about…..a 70yr old lady dying on the road for example! You obviously have a chip on your shoulder about something. That’s fine but don’t post comments that you cannot back up which imply that the people who work their arses off to help the public are in some way responsible for this cock up. I cannot comment on this particular call but I would bet my last euro that the crew got to the scene as fast as they possibly could. It is not their fault if they responded from ardee, Dublin, cork or limerick. They did their best!

He thinks that it beggars belief that there’s problems with ambulance cover for drogheda when we don’t have a national air ambulance service in day-to-day use even though we’re moving to a “centers of excellence” model for hospital care where speed of transport of critically ill patients is a necessity?

Man needs some better priorities.

The sad truth of this is that the two ambulances in Drogheda were probably either tied up in an A & E waiting for a trolley or else at a “non serious non life threatening” case elsewhere. Ambulances are routinely called out to minor cases where the person merely doesn’t want to wait in an A & E like everybody else. The HSE need to educate people to the fact that calling an ambulance DOES NOT mean you skip a Que, you will be triaged like everybody else and seen to in order of decreasing severity. Over the weekend, one hospital in Dublin held up 8 ambulances for the entire day while crews waited for beds to come free. Sad cases like these would not happen if people used 999 only for serious cases and not as a taxi service. I agree with Steven re. the fire based EMS system, it works extremely well in Dublin… for once we are leading the field in something!

The HSE Ambulance Service have a track record of pushing these buttons early, late or not at all and then changing their stories afterwards, as and when it suits they’re needs. When they’re looking for more staff, they press them late to look busy. When they’re being criticised for being late, they claim to have arrived on time but forgot to press the button. It’s about time they got GPS loggers which don’t lie.
The fact of the matter is, the Ambulance Service like the entire HSE is under-resourced and not fully integrated. There could have been First Responders, Voluntary Ambulance Services, Auxiliary Services within range that could have responded but weren’t called.

I’m going to come at this from a different angle. The first responders at 99% of accidents/incidents are the guards. While in the college we receive good first aid training we do not receive any inservice after that. I’m not saying we should be trained up to emt standard but think we should at least stabilize victims while we await an ambulance.

Surely a prime example of the benefit Fire based EMS could bring to Ireland’s towns and cities, similar to what DFB operate in Dublin. A fire Appliance manned by either EMTs, or paramedics responds to an accident scene such as this, stabilises the patient, performs life saving interventions, and has the patient ready to go in the ambulance as soon as it arrives.

I know in Roscommon we have big problems also But I cannot say it is the Ambulance Crew who are to blame they do a trojan job in very difficult situation as our Perfectly up to date new A+E was closed by James Reilly and our Ambulance Crew when on a emergency they have to travel to Galway / Mayo / Mullingar / or sligo which are all over 1-20 mins away so each ambulance are not available filable for over 3 hours and up to 4 hours Now how can james reilly be doing his Job right and more cuts in so unfortunately i think we will be seeing more of this unless the MINISTER Stands up and get things right and correct his wrong doing and give us a health system that works not tomorrow not next week but today but I am afraid james reilly will never be the one to say he has not got a clue and admit he is making a complete shambles
and he always passes the blame to his frontline staff ae up folks and realise that james reilly is mary harney with a beard

Dave Wallace: yes!!! EUREKA! every single employee of the HSE is corrupt and only interested in fiddling stats to have an easier life!
I suggest Dave you get off your meddling arse and let us do our job to the best of our abilities while working in poorly staffed and funded areas.
Hope to see you coming through the doors of an A and E near me soon!

The accident happened 241 m from the cottage hospital in Drogheda. This hospital they are looking to close also.

Now thats truly awful to hear, your fully entitled to have your earlier opinion. Suppose I’m sick of people blaming front line staff for the consequences caused by cuts. It gets really frustrating when you do your best every day and bad stuff still happens. Apologies for my sarcasm earlier automatic reaction is to defend employees involved as I am one of them. The system is truly flawed and shrinking resources is not a solution.

This doesn’t make sense the ambulance passed us at Kieran’s corner at exactly 6:03 pm so how could it arrive at 5:40pm ?

I have no doubt that Paramedics on the streets are doing their best. I understand they are under immense pressure. Unfortunately I do have first hand knowledge of incidences like this happening. My mother did CPR on a dying child for 38 minutes after the “At Scene” button had been pressed. The ambulance was nowhere to be seen. Again, our local ambulance (only 1) was away from base at a Dublin Hospital unable to hand over their patient due to a lack of trolleys. I did report it. The HSE sent one of their Senior Officers to smooth things over. The CAD report says the Ambo arrived within 8 minutes (from a distance of 30km). The 999 recordings show that the final 999 call was made 40 minutes after the first one with the caller shouting “Where’s the ambulance, oh no wait I think I see it now”. The child was pronounced dead on arrival to A&E. I’m not blaming individuals I’m blaming the system. I personally know the Paramedic and the AP who arrived on scene, theyre good people who’ve been put under terrible pressure by a broken system. I fully agree with you, we need more Paramedics and APs, more stations and more vehicles on duty. What we don’t need is Senior Officers in the HSE whitewashing the facts. I don’t know if that happened in this case, but I would be suspicious.
I’m sorry if my comments offended anyone.

Does this constitute negligent homicide?

Why are the journal screening comments unnecessarily?

I
have no doubt that Paramedics on the streets are doing their best. I understand they are under immense pressure. Unfortunately I do have first hand knowledge of incidences like this happening. My mother did CPR on a dying child for 38 minutes after the “At Scene” button had been pressed. The ambulance was nowhere to be seen. Again, our local ambulance (only 1) was away from base at a Dublin Hospital unable to hand over their patient due to a lack of trolleys. I did report it. The HSE sent one of their Senior Officers to smooth things over. The CAD report says the Ambo arrived within 8 minutes (from a distance of 30km). The 999 recordings show that the final 999 call was made 40 minutes after the first one with the caller shouting “Where’s the ambulance, oh no wait I think I see it now”. The child was pronounced dead on arrival to A&E. I’m not blaming individuals I’m blaming the system. I personally know the Paramedic and the AP who arrived on scene, theyre good people who’ve been put under terrible pressure by a broken system. I fully agree with you, we need more Paramedics and APs, more stations and more vehicles on duty. What we don’t need is Senior Officers in the HSE whitewashing the facts. I don’t know if that happened in this case, but I would be suspicious.
I’m sorry if my comments offended anyone.