Craic On

Maura Porter

I saw in the Inishowen Independent this morning that the reason that Maura Porter had to wait 50 minutes for an ambulance when she was knocked down in Carndonagh, and didn’t get to hospital till an hour and a half after she was hit, was because no cover had been arranged for an ambulance crew which was off. She died later that night.

It seems that while there are 5 ambulance crews in Letterkenny there is only one in Carndonagh which covers Moville, Greencastle, Redcastle etc. There were only 4 ambulances in Letterkenny so they were a crew down. They are supposed to get cover when tha happens but it seems that because of budget considerations they often don’t.

Unprotected

It means that when the ambulance in Carndonagh is called out, the rest of this area, including Moville, is left unprotected. If someone has a heart attack or is hit by a car then they’ll just have to wait till the Carndonagh ambulance gets back from Letterkenny or an ambulance in Letterkenny gets here – if there is one available.

That’s the danger that we are all in here. It seems that there were ambulance cars just 10 minutes away from where Maura was lying injured but no one to fill them.

Not Working

The rules are that ambulances should get to the injured person within 19 minutes – or at least 85% of them should. In this area, 38% of ambulances take more than 19 minutes.

That could mean the difference between life and death.

I don’t know what the solution is but clearly this process is broken and they need to find another solution – or it could be any of us next.

This is yet another area where Donegal gets let down by Dublin.