Sinn F\u00e9in TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has said he is shocked at the revelation that the military ambulance at the Curragh Camp has been called out to work outside the camp more than 800 times since 2011.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe, who received the information in a PQ response from the Minister for Defence this week, said it is clear that the military ambulance is now filling in\u00a0the gap\u00a0to make up the shortfall of Health Service Executive ambulances.<\/p>\n
Speaking this week he said;<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I have no objection to the military ambulance helping out in times of emergency it is clear now that it is being used on a regular basis to help fill in the gaps and\u00a0make up the shortfall of HSE ambulances.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is particularly\u00a0worrying as there is currently an embargo on the\u00a0hiring of HSE staff, leaving our health services with dangerously low staffing levels and a cut in services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis revelation also raises the serious questions around what qualifications those operating the military ambulance actually have compared to their civilian counterparts.\u00a0\u00a0Are they qualified to the level of the paramedics that operate the HSE ambulances? \u00a0I don\u2019t know the answer to that but it is a legitimate question that surely arise following these latest\u00a0revelations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have previously raised concerns over ambulance cover in Tallaght and its hinterland when the working week for the National Ambulance Service was cut from 40 to 39 hours. The area being covered by the shrinking service is getting wider. This will inevitably impact on response times\u00a0and\u00a0put more and more\u00a0seriously ill\u00a0people\u00a0at greater risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe revelation that the military ambulance at the Curragh is regularly called out for jobs outside the camp graphically shows that this service is being stretched beyond the ability of the HSE.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an issue that the Minister for Health James Reilly\u00a0needs to urgently\u00a0deal with and I will be raising this issue with him directly in the D\u00e1il next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
| \n Year<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | Military<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | HSE Support<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | Total<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n | 2011<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 71<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 323<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 394<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n | 2012<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 92<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 207<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 299<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n | 2013 to date<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 61<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 274<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n \n | 335<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sinn F\u00e9in TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has said he is shocked at the revelation that the military ambulance at the Curragh Camp has been called out to work outside the camp more than 800 times since 2011. Deputy Crowe, who received the information in a PQ response from the Minister for Defence this week, said it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1443,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |