Emergency response times in South Sligo average 19 minutes

Sligo County Councillor Keith Henry has been informed that the average emergency response time for ambulance calls to the South Sligo area is nineteen minutes.

For non emergency cases the time can increase significantly. The Ballymote Fianna Fáil Councillor put down a question at the recent meeting of the HSE West Health Forum in Galway seeking the response time and what measures were being made to improve it.

“Ambulance crews do absolutely fantastic work often in very difficult situations but having adequate deployment bases that can reduce response times is very important. When one looks at the map of ambulance bases within our region there’s big gap in the South Sligo area” Cllr Henry said.

“For the purposes of the National Ambulance Service County Sligo forms part of the North Western area along with Leitrim and so our closest base within that region is Sligo town.

“While there is a base in Boyle which would be closer to many parts of South Sligo it is part of the Western Area and therefore the crew that may be posted there could be covering calls in any other part of that region which includes Mayo, Galway and Roscommon. Crews in Sligo are just as likely to be called to provide support in other areas of the North West. So in these instances because we have no base in South Sligo, response times can increase at pressure points” he explained as to the reason for his question.

Henry, the Vice Chair of the Health Forum Committee has been lobbying the HSE and National Ambulance Service to do something about the lack of a base in the South Sligo areas.

“I’ve spoken with the Chief Ambulance Officer from the National Ambulance Service to discuss ways of improving response times.

“The new Primary Care Centre in Ballymote is intended to have a dynamic deployment point which will help in the aim to have all resources in a region deployed across that region as a fleet in a bid to improve response times. This being better than what currently happens which is having several crews in Sligo due to no staff or equipment facilities being available anywhere else in the county.”

“Tubbercurry is also being examined as a possible location for a dynamic deployment centre in the future. We always read or hear of the cases where people have to wait maybe an hour or more for an ambulance and dynamic deployment points should help reduce this.

“It’s good news for the general South Sligo area as we never know when we may need the service but certainly anything that can be done to reduce the time for emergency calls will be greatly welcomed” Cllr Henry concluded.