Financial cuts hitting ambulance responses

Financial cuts hitting ambulance responses

5 August 2015

A FUNDING shortage is responsible for inadequate ambulance provision in the South Down area, according to the area’s MP.

Ahead of a public meeting in Downpatrick tonight to discuss ambulance cover and emergency response times across the district, Margaret Ritchie has confirmed she plans to discuss the funding issue with Stormont Health Minister Simon Hamilton.

Tonight’s meeting at Denvir’s Coaching Inn is being organised by the Down Community Health Committee and will be addressed by the Ambulance Service’s area manager Ruth McNamara. The meeting starts at 7pm.

Miss Ritchie said there is increasing concern that if an ambulance has to transfer a patient from the local area to a Belfast hospital, the crew will spend the remainder of its shift working in the city, reducing cover locally.

“This situation is unacceptable,” declared the MP. “Not only does it reduce ambulance availability in South Down, it also reduces the possibility of the Ambulance Service taking local patients to the Downe Hospital, thereby diverting them to the Ulster, City or Royal Victoria hospitals.

“While we are all aware of the financial difficulties currently facing all of those working within our health service, the Ambulance Service must respond to the current situation whereby it is ‘pooling’ its services in Belfast to the detriment of the Downe and the people of South Down.”

Miss Ritchie said a dedicated ambulance service must be provided for the constituency with residents not treated as second class citizens because of the pressures on the Ulster and Belfast hospitals. 

The MP added: “There must be no discrimination of rural communities. The Ambulance Service must spell out if the organisation is meeting response times in the Down area to the same extent as it is in Belfast. Mr Hamilton has agreed to meet with me to discuss ambulance provision for the local community and I will be raising all of these matters directly with him.”

Health campaigners, who have been seeking a meeting with the Ambulance Service for some time, are delighted one of the organisation’s senior officials will address tonight’s public meeting which comes after a series of incidents across the district over recent months when a number of patients had to wait lengthy periods for paramedics to arrive.

Campaigners have expressed “concern and disappointment” about emergency ambulance cover across the district, given that there is no accident and emergency service available at the Downe Hospital after 8pm from Monday to Friday and none at weekends.

They say the issue of poor response times to emergency situations is an issue that must be addressed by the Ambulance Service which must have the resources it requires to deliver a service people expect.

Campaigners are hoping local people will make the most of tonight’s opportunity to hear what the organisation’s area manager has to say, given the importance people attach to ambulance delays and poor response times in some cases.

Health Committee chairman, Eamonn McGrady, believes the public meeting provides the senior official from the Ambulance Service with an opportunity to provide the organisation’s perspective on what has been happening locally. 

He also revealed the organisation’s area manager is concerned that when ambulances go out of the Down area to transfer a patient to a Belfast hospital they can’t get back to the district.

Mr McGrady added: “Tonight’s meeting provides us with an opportunity to work together with the Ambulance Service on the issues which are a concern to us all. We will also have the chance to highlight our concerns about ambulance delays and response times.”