Five New Ambulances And 27 Staff Announced For Clare

0:00The Iraqis made the West members met today with the National Ambulance Service. We were anxious to get clarity on the proposals that we know have been coming for some time based on last year's budget and additional resources being provided to the National Ambulance Service to improve access to that emergency care, particularly in the Midwest. So it's been identified that there will be a 27-extra ambulance personnel deployed to County Claire. That will see an increase of five ambulances and it will be a significant upgrade of services, particularly in Kil'Rosh and in a Steiman and in NSI also. And there's an additional, I think it's eight people who will be deployed across the entirety of the country. So that location has yet to be identified. So all in all, it's a significant investment. It's a good improvement in the services that we have,

1:01but the demand is growing and it will require additional financial input again in 2027 and every year thereafter to bring the ambulance services in Claire up to an acceptable standard. And clearly over recent years, it has not been at the level that you would want. We regularly here in our constituency offices of the delays that people are experiencing when an ambulance is called in an emergency situation. So this will go some way towards resolving that, but by no means is it a complete solution, it will require additional investment over the years ahead and together with our colleagues here in the county that are at a reduced level, we'll continue to campaign and achieve additional resources to improve the service. Just to understand these ambulances and staff haven't been assigned to a specific location yet, is that the case? Well, there will be an additional group of staff going to Kilrush in a Steinman and Dennis

2:03and there are an additional eight staff in addition to that that have yet to be determined to which location they will be deployed. But you'd like to see the West in particular supported given the deficit there? Absolutely. Of course, we regularly hear situations where the ambulance in Kilrush or in a Steinman is maybe taking a patient to Limerick or wherever and another incident occurs and the delay is significant because another ambulance has to be dispatched or perhaps from Scarif or from Ennis. And that's putting a further delay on getting a patient to the hospital to the right location at the right time. So the more ambulances that we get right across the county but in particular, the more outlying areas that are peripheral to the hospital network, we need more staff there, we need more ambulances there. This is a significant improvement in that. But as I said, it's by no means the entirety of the story,

3:05we need to continue to improve that service over the years ahead and we will have to continue to put more resources available to assist those people who live in the more outlying communities or are away from the centre of where the general electric is. Do we have a defined timeline for the rollout of these additional resources? Yeah, well, the funding that was put in place at the budget last year saw the demand to come into play from the first to July or the second half of the year onwards. So it's funded from the first of July and then it's obviously up to the ambulance service to put the personnel in place and put the equipment in place as soon thereafter as possible.