Sinn Féin Councillor Conor D. McGuinness has hit out at the failure to ensure an acceptable level of embergency ambulance cover for West Waterford. He made the comments having received information from within the National Ambulance Service (NAS) that that West Waterford was left without dedicated ambulance cover, with Waterford had only one emergency ambulance on duty.
McGuinness said:
“I have received information from within the NAS that clearly shows the impact of Government inaction on addressing the staffing crisis within out emergency ambulance service.
“Documents that I have seen show that there was no ambulance operating from Dungarvan ambulance station last night (Sunday), while only one ambulance was available in Waterford City. The documents show that this roster is to be repeated several times this week”
“This means that there at certain times this week there will be no stand-by service for West Waterford, and one unit in Youghal will be expected to cover an area stretching from Midleton to Waterford City.”
“This simply isn’t good enough. NAS staff provide an excellent service. Our paramedics are second to none. They are also being let down by Government. The inaction of Minister Donnelly when it comes to recruitment and retention of paramedics is putting lives at risk, and is putting ambulance workers under immense pressured leading to long, exhausting shifts.
“The Minister and NAS management have conceded that they need to double staffing levels, but have yet to see any significant step-change from Government. The Minister’s inaction is a scandal and needs to be called out before its too late.”
Cllr. Conor D. McGuinness 