Nine-hour ambulance wait in Donegal
Deputy Mac Lochlainn described an elderly man waiting more than nine hours in an ambulance outside Letterkenny University Hospital and called for urgent ministerial action on Donegal health services. The Tánaiste said the delay was unacceptable and would ask the Minister for Health to contact the Deputy.
On Sunday, a 77-year-old man in a serious condition was taken from his home in north Donegal by ambulance to Letterkenny University Hospital. He spent more than nine hours in the ambulance waiting to be attended to. The Tánaiste will agree that this was utterly unacceptable.
We have a profound crisis in our health system across Donegal from NoWDOC to primary care and from community hospitals to our acute hospital in Letterkenny. It has been neglected for far too long. Will the Tánaiste ask the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, to go to Donegal urgently, which we have called for repeatedly, meet the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, other unions and staff on the front line, and do everything he can to address this crisis in solidarity with the doctors, nurses and paramedics who are working in conditions that are utterly unacceptable?
Comment on this
I agree that a delay of that nature is not acceptable. I do not know the details, but I hope that the person affected is doing okay and the delay did not impact adversely on his health. The Minister for Health is not in the Dáil today but I will let him know that the issue was raised and ask him to contact the Deputy directly.