A 68-YEAR-OLD MAN died in Co Mayo after an ambulance delay earlier this month, the Dáil was told today.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the case of the death of Stephen Lavelle with Taoiseach Micheál Martin in Leaders’ Questions today.

Stephen, who was from Erris in north Mayo, became “gravely ill” after arriving at a pub in Binghamstown on the night of Saturday, 10 January, McDonald said.

An ambulance was called for him at 10:25pm, but despite several follow-up calls, no ambulance arrived. A doctor was called and arrived to see Stephen, after which the doctor told Stephen’s son Anthony, “This is a category one emergency. You need to get him to hospital right now”, McDonald said.

An ambulance did not arrive and the family carried Stephen to a car to drive 56 miles to Mayo University Hospital.

“His wife Martina, his son Anthony and his daughter-in-law Rebecca all accompanied him. As they drove, Stephen’s condition deteriorated. He was screaming in pain,” McDonald continued.

She said his head “began to droop” and his eyes were wide in his head, with his daughter-in-law beginning CPR in the car on the way to the hospital.

It was only when they were three minutes away from the hospital that they met the ambulance, the TD said.

“When they arrived, nobody was waiting for them at the hospital. Anthony ran in and got help. It was now well after midnight. Stephen’s pulse came back after eight minutes of CPR. He was ventilated and brought to the ICU,” she said.

Stephen died the next morning. McDonald expressed her condolences to his family.

The Dublin-Central TD said that the “horror” faced by the man and his family highlights “in a most harrowing way the severe crisis in our ambulance service”, particularly in rural areas where hospitals can be an hour or more away.

The shortage of paramedics and a lack of recruitment to make up for this has led to “incredible pressure” on paramedics working in an already stretched healthcare system, she added.

 ”The Government has stood by and allowed all of this to happen, and it is people at their most desperate and vulnerable moments who pay the price.”

McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he accepted “the scale of this crisis” and that “ambulance delays put lives as risk”, as well as inquiring as to what Government plans to do to “make sure that no one ever has to go through what Stephen Lavelle and his family went through on that awful night”.

In reply, the Taoiseach said he was not aware of the case but described Stephen’s death as a “devastating loss to the family” and said “no words can console the family”.

Despite this, he said there has been “very significant investment in the ambulance service over many years” and described at length the developments in the National Ambulance Service (NAS).

He concluded, “Again, anything I have said is of no consolation to the family concerned. I will refer the case to NAS and to the HSE for further examination of what happened here and what the correct response and specific conditions should or could have been.”

McDonald said her party colleague Rose Conway Walsh has written to the Minister of Health Jennifer Carroll-MacNeill in respect of Stephen Lavelle’s case.

“An emergency like Stephen’s should be responded to within 19 minutes. That is the rule. That is the standard. That did not happen in his case. As a matter of fact, in more than half of such emergencies the 19-minute threshold is not met,” she said.

Martin defended recruitment in the service but said further reforms in alternative care pathways were also needed.