Mayo Sinn Féin TD, Rose Conway-Walsh has called on the government to urgently publish a multi-annual capacity and workforce plan to meet the needs of patients and improve the ability of the National Ambulance Service to save lives.
Deputy Conway-Walsh said: “Sinn Féin is bringing forward a motion to address the crisis in ambulance response times. 80 percent of life-threatening incidents should be responded to by an ambulance within 19 minutes as per the HSE’s own standards.
"Yet response times in the West are 37% longer than they were in 2019. A serious plan is needed if the Ambulance Service is to reverse the trend and improve outcomes.
“The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has failed to support our frontline paramedics, and in Budget 2023 Ministers Paschal Donohoe and Michael McGrath chose not to provide the funding needed to reverse the trend in ambulance response times.
“This has led to the burnout of frontline paramedics and has increased risk for patients. The increases in response times are stark and show that the Ambulance Service is under serious strain and pressure; exactly what paramedics have been warning for years.
“The National Ambulance Service currently has approximately 2,000 paramedics, and their workforce plan lays out a need for more than 1,300 more paramedics by the end of 2024 and a need to double the staffing composition to more than 4,000 by 2026.
“They have warned that if these targets are not met, they ‘will have insufficient resources to respond to the projected demand and response times will continue to increase.
“This is dangerous and is putting people’s lives at risk. Sinn Féin is calling on the government to urgently publish a multi-annual capacity and workforce plan to meet the needs of patients and improve the ability of the National Ambulance Service.”
