Mary Harney on primetime re Mid Western A+E's

Paulzx

Mary Harney said tonight on Primetime that the extra distances to A+e's after she closes hospitals in the mid west won't be a problem due to all the new Advanced Paramedics and extra ambulances that are available

I'm not in the NAS but i'm not aware of ambulance crews crawling out of the woodwork to take up the slack.

Where are all these crews? Maybe Harney ate them:D


Can any Hse members answer this?

tallaght01

Same old balls that they tried with us in the UK for ages.

Give a few people a few extra skills, and use that to justify a massive reduction in services.

It's a slippery slope. Next thing will be ambulance staff encouraged to convince people to stay at home if they don't think they're unwell, and lots of other unfair responsibilities being put on them.

If it's cheaper, it's gonna be wheeled out over the next few years.

TheNog

Paulzx wrote: »

Where are all these crews? Maybe Harney ate them:D

LMAO


A question for anyone who can answer it. I see there is an ambulance station in Virginia, Cavan with I think only the one ambulance there and it seems to be manned 24/7. Cavan General and Navan General are about 18 miles from Virginia.

Was wondering is this the norm across the country to have stand alone ambo stations? It seems a good idea to have ambos spread out rather than one centralised station for all ambos.

Do they have somethin similar in the Mid West too to compensate for the closure of the A&E in Ennis?

siopadoireachta

TheNog wrote: »

LMAO


A question for anyone who can answer it. I see there is an ambulance station in Virginia, Cavan with I think only the one ambulance there and it seems to be manned 24/7. Cavan General and Navan General are about 18 miles from Virginia.

Was wondering is this the norm across the country to have stand alone ambo stations? It seems a good idea to have ambos spread out rather than one centralised station for all ambos.

Do they have somethin similar in the Mid West too to compensate for the closure of the A&E in Ennis?

North tipp have 24/7 cover. nenagh has 2 ambulances during day and then 1 at night. roscrea have 1 on days and 1 at night. thurles has 2 during day and 1 at night. so if nenagh is closed at night only 3 ambulances on duty for all of north tipp.

Bang Bang

Paulzx wrote: »

Mary Harney said tonight on Primetime that the extra distances to A+e's after she closes hospitals in the mid west won't be a problem due to all the new Advanced Paramedics and extra ambulances that are available

I'm not in the NAS but i'm not aware of ambulance crews crawling out of the woodwork to take up the slack.

Where are all these crews? Maybe Harney ate them:D


Can any Hse members answer this?

I can tell you know Paul, but I'm sure you already know that she (Harney) is talking through her arse.

As you know the HSE refused to up the budget for the Swords DFB ambulance. Also, other areas of Dublin are crying out for more ambulances. Loughlinstown are constantly on the go, requiring the already over stretched resourses in Tallaght, James' Street and Wicklow, not forgetting Nutgrove and Donnybrook too. So those other areas are constantly being stripped of their resourses.

We were informed in work that the HSE cannot and will not create new jobs, which is what putting extra ambulances on rosters would be doing.
This leads me to believe that yet again the minister for health is filling everyone up with pure bullsh*t.

I'm aware that my views on the Dublin situation is echoed throughout the country.

The Nog puts a very good question out regarding stand alone ambulance stations.
It does make sense to spread the resourses out to cover larger areas. Again take Dublin for example. DFB ambulances are placed throughout the city and suburbs over I think 10 or maybe 11 stations. The HSE has a similar number of vehicles placed in four seperate stations so crews are covering larger distances when responding from the station.
"Don't keep all your eggs in the one basket" springs to mind.

Sierra Oscar

Just to point out the facts:

For the closure of Nenagh Hospital A & E services, 6 "advanced paramedics" (what does that even mean?) are to be placed on duty. At any one time, there will only ever be one of these paramedics on duty in his own "special car" that will not be of any use to transport the critically ill to hospital.

If an ambulance is required, it must come from the ambulance depo at the Mid-West Regional Hospital. On average it will take over 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive on the scene to an area in North Tipp, then it has to get back into the Mid-West Regional. Also, only one ambulance is being assigned to replace the whole fleet that was present in the Nenagh Hospital depo. The HSE's review's recommendation does not take into account that more than one accident can happen at the one time, or that more than one ambulance may be required to attend the scene of an accident.

It is scary to be honest, but the people of North Tipperary are not going to give up Nenagh A&E services without a fight, and not until the resources for this "Centre Of Medical Excellence" are implemented and tested will we allow the A&E services from Nenagh to be withdrawn!

Tango Alpha 51

Paulzx wrote: »

Mary Harney said tonight on Primetime that the extra distances to A+e's after she closes hospitals in the mid west won't be a problem due to all the new Advanced Paramedics and extra ambulances that are available

I'm not in the NAS but i'm not aware of ambulance crews crawling out of the woodwork to take up the slack.

Where are all these crews? Maybe Harney ate them:D


Can any Hse members answer this?

Short answer is we don't have the crews to do the additonal workload. FFS we can barely cover the workload we have at the moment let alone the additonal work that closing these two "A&E's" will bring.

As for her comment that extra ambulances are available, where?????? & there's isn't as many AP's as she would lead everyone to believe.

Imagine this the ambo's in Clare are coming into Limerick. If something happens in the furthest part of West Clare, those of us who work Limerick could potentially be tasked to respond to said incident (76mls one way!!).

In theory I've no problems with this plan being implemented as long as the extra crews, training etc are in place first but there's no money in the coffers.

Hold on I've got it, all the new pension levies can pay for it :mad::mad:

Tango Alpha 51

TheNog wrote: »

LMAO


A question for anyone who can answer it. I see there is an ambulance station in Virginia, Cavan with I think only the one ambulance there and it seems to be manned 24/7. Cavan General and Navan General are about 18 miles from Virginia.

Was wondering is this the norm across the country to have stand alone ambo stations? It seems a good idea to have ambos spread out rather than one centralised station for all ambos.

Do they have somethin similar in the Mid West too to compensate for the closure of the A&E in Ennis?

Co. Clare have ambulance stations in Ennis, Kilrush, Ennistymon & Scarriff. Hardly ideal.

Tipp North is Nenagh, Roscrea & Tipperary

Limerick has Dooradoyle & NewcastleWest

Paulzx

Bang Bang wrote: »

I can tell you know Paul, but I'm sure you already know that she (Harney) is talking through her arse.

As you know the HSE refused to up the budget for the Swords DFB ambulance. Also, other areas of Dublin are crying out for more ambulances. Loughlinstown are constantly on the go, requiring the already over stretched resourses in Tallaght, James' Street and Wicklow, not forgetting Nutgrove and Donnybrook too. So those other areas are constantly being stripped of their resourses.

We were informed in work that the HSE cannot and will not create new jobs, which is what putting extra ambulances on rosters would be doing.
This leads me to believe that yet again the minister for health is filling everyone up with pure bullsh*t.

I'm aware that my views on the Dublin situation is echoed throughout the country.

The Nog puts a very good question out regarding stand alone ambulance stations.
It does make sense to spread the resourses out to cover larger areas. Again take Dublin for example. DFB ambulances are placed throughout the city and suburbs over I think 10 or maybe 11 stations. The HSE has a similar number of vehicles placed in four seperate stations so crews are covering larger distances when responding from the station.
"Don't keep all your eggs in the one basket" springs to mind.

Yea, you're correct Bang Bang. I knew watching the program that she was talking out of her formidable arse. I just wanted to hear opinions from people closer to the situation. We all know the ambulance service is completely under resourced and suffers from its fair share of cabbages in senior positions.

Is Harney actually stupid enough to believe what she's being told by senior civil servants about available resources in the service? Or does she actually know the truth and is lying through her teeth? The whole Advanced Paramedic thing is a red herring. The available manpower is not going to increase.


You are correct about the DFB ambo in Swords Fire Station. The Hse is refusing to stump up the money for it. More annoying from what we have been told at station level, is that the Hse won't even pay up the money they owe for the agreed number of ambos that we are contracted for!!. So not only is Dublin City Council paying for an extra ambo off its own inititive but they can't recover the payment for the ambos the are legally contracted to provide.:mad:

I feel sorry for the crews in the mid west because the **** is going to fall in their laps when these A+E's close

timmywex

Thw worst part about harney is she thinks everything is great in dublin aswell and that theres 30something ambulance on 999 calls at all times.

Sierra Oscar

Paulzx wrote: »

Is Harney actually stupid enough to believe what she's being told by senior civil servants about available resources in the service? Or does she actually know the truth and is lying through her teeth? The whole Advanced Paramedic thing is a red herring. The available manpower is not going to increase.

Harney is misinformed about the whole situation. At a meeting about the proposed changes a few weeks back, someone asked her how she would feel if here children had to rely on an ambulance from Dublin arriving to Wexford on a 999 call.

Her response basically was, that’s nonsense and is not relevant to the situation at all. The person who asked her the question informed her that that same travel distance would be required of ambulances responding to 999 traveling from Limerick attending some calls in North Tipperary.

Her reply was that she had never thought of it in that way.:rolleyes:

dredre

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Just to point out the facts:
If an ambulance is required, it must come from the ambulance depo at the Mid-West Regional Hospital. On average it will take over 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive on the scene to an area in North Tipp, then it has to get back into the Mid-West Regional.

The ambulances will still be where they are now. They are not moving to Limerick as well.

Sierra Oscar

dredre wrote: »

The ambulances will still be where they are now. They are not moving to Limerick as well.

Under the proposals more ambulances are to be allocated to the area in the long term, however the resources will not be in place before Nenagh A&E closes and no exact timeframe has been laid down as to when they will be put in place. The ambulances will still have to travel to the Limerick Regional & back making the journey to the A&E unit much much longer (I am nearly certain that only one ambulance will be in the area, meaning that if one ambulance is on way to the Regional and another call comes in, a unit from the depot in the Regional will have to be dispatched) Also I was nearly certain that some ambulances were to be immediately transferred to the depot in the Regional. No extra ambulances are going to be in place to makeup the shortfall when the changes go live, except for this "advanced paramedic" car which is not even an ambulance.


Also in regards the change as a whole, the report recommended that if the changes are to occur an extra 135 beds will have to be implemented into the Regional. The HSE are closing the A&E before implementing these beds, and state that the beds will follow. At the very least this means that for a number of months the Regional will certainly not have enough beds to cope with the inflow of patients into the A&E. It is already suffering issues from overcrowding. Patients are already on trolleys often in the Regional. It really makes no sense to close two A&E units and move their load to a hospital that is already operating at its max, without actually implementing any further resources first. And in the current economic times one has to ask if this "center of excellence" will ever see the light of day . . .

Surely relying on hospital beds that are already in place is better than relying on a unit that has not even been built yet?

Tango Alpha 51

Paulzx wrote: »

I feel sorry for the crews in the mid west because the **** is going to fall in their laps when these A+E's close

Thanks Paul,
Your right. The ****e is going to fall in our laps but no one gives a **** but then again i guess it's the same for ambo crews all over the country:mad:

Tango Alpha 51

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Just to point out the facts:

For the closure of Nenagh Hospital A & E services, 6 "advanced paramedics" (what does that even mean?) are to be placed on duty. At any one time, there will only ever be one of these paramedics on duty in his own "special car" that will not be of any use to transport the critically ill to hospital.

If an ambulance is required, it must come from the ambulance depo at the Mid-West Regional Hospital. On average it will take over 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive on the scene to an area in North Tipp, then it has to get back into the Mid-West Regional. Also, only one ambulance is being assigned to replace the whole fleet that was present in the Nenagh Hospital depo. The HSE's review's recommendation does not take into account that more than one accident can happen at the one time, or that more than one ambulance may be required to attend the scene of an accident.

It is scary to be honest, but the people of North Tipperary are not going to give up Nenagh A&E services without a fight, and not until the resources for this "Centre Of Medical Excellence" are implemented and tested will we allow the A&E services from Nenagh to be withdrawn!

S/O,
Don't exactly know where your getting the figures from. There is 3 ambulances based in the Nenagh Ambulance Station. 2 on days, 1 on nights. It's not as if there is only 1 ambulance on covering the area. This status quo still stays in place. The problem lies in getting the extra WTE's to make up additonal crews in the station.

Bigger problem lies in the fact that the two ambulances on duty @ night in Limerick City are expected to travel out to Angelsboro which is 1hr 4mins travel time according to AA routeplanner 1 way. Limerick to ballyhea Co, Cork 40 mins 1 way, Limerick to whitegate in East Clare, 1 hr 25mins 1 way. So if we already have a limerick crew gone to one of these locations, that leaves 1 ambulance left in Limerick to cover the city as well as the county