Kerrykeel woman says ambulance debacle means ‘people will suffer or die'

 A Kerrykeel woman has called on the local community to come together as she plans to hold a public meeting to ensure a locally-based ambulance.

Managers at the National Ambulance Service have been instructed not to bring their staff vehicle home when out of hours until a dispute over benefit-in-kind has been resolved. 

This, Debbie McLaughlin says, will create a disastrous delay and believes the issue must be addressed immediately, with the requirement now to wait on ambulances to come to and from Letterkenny - if available - to the Fanad peninsula. Local operator JJ McGowan, who normally covers  Fanad and surrounding areas like Kerrykeel and Downings, is one of those without a vehicle at home.

“We have lost our Ambulance Response Vehicle in our area as has everywhere else in the country,” Ms McLaughlin says. “But our concern should be our area. JJ Mc Gowan has covered our area for many years and served us well, now we don’t have him anymore. What happens if someone we know and love takes seriously ill? We wait for an ambulance that could be two hours away at no fault of theirs? The ambulance wait times will now be affected by this mad decision and people will suffer or worse die.

“I personally think as a community we all need to come together and make a lot of noise about this. This is only the first you will all hear from me on this I am taking this so seriously I’m actually shaking writing this. I plan my next move is to hold a public meeting for our area more details will follow."

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The instruction was confirmed by the HSE: "The HSE must comply with Revenue Commissioner regulations in relation to what in this case is the potential personal use of publicly owned vehicles. All HSE employees are covered by these rules.

"The HSE National Ambulance Service has identified that the number of incidents responded to by vehicle users outside of working hours is minimal.

"Response times carried out and reported on by the NAS through HSE service plan performance targets relate to emergency ambulances or vehicles capable of transporting patients only. As a public body, the HSE cannot support the use of publicly owned emergency vehicles for purposes that the Revenue Commissioner considers potential personal use or benefit."