‘Nothing has changed – ambulance delays to cost more lives’
THE family of a woman who died after she was hit by a car and waited 50 minutes for an ambulance has warned that nothing has changed in the health service.
Maura Porter was killed 150 metres from her home in Carndonagh, Co Donegal, as she returned home from church on December 30, 2013.
Her daughter Davina Porter spoke out after an inquest into the death of Margaret Callaghan (71) heard she died after waiting 71 minutes for an ambulance to travel from Letterkenny Hospital, just 2km away.
Ms Porter originally warned that these types of deaths would continue when her own mother Maura died six years ago.
On that night, December 30 2013, of eight ambulances in Donegal, two were responding to emergency calls, one was in Sligo Hospital and five were waiting outside the emergency department in Letterkenny hospital – the shortest wait taking two hours and the longest nearly five.
A report produced after an inquiry into Ms Porter’s death suggested: “The review team believe that when these recommendations are implemented, the chances of such events reoccurring are exceedingly small.”
Ms Porter said that despite this, however, nothing has changed.
“This is old news. Mum is dead six years but nothing has changed,” she told the Irish
Independent.
“We’re not shocked. It will happen again. It’s only a matter of time before somebody else will be waiting for an ambulance and, like Mum, they’ll lose their life.
“I still wake up at night sweating over that hour we had to wait. That hour has really killed us. The sheer panic as we watched the life drain out of her while five ambulances sat outside the hospital.”
She called for more ambulances, an air ambulance service to be made available, extra drivers to be on call and for the speed of offloading patients to improve.
Ms Porter said it is imperative ambulances can transfer patients to hospital in the ‘golden hour’ when they have the best chance of surviving.