The Mayor of Castlebar hit out this week at the news that 12 jobs in the Ambulance Control Centre in Castlebar will be lost to a newly designed facility in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal. Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne told the Mayo Advertiser: “Now you are going to get put through to a control centre in Donegal who will then tell the ambulance drivers where the call is from, communication can break down at the best of times, and they are not going to know the geography of Mayo like a person from here would and incidents could happen. But it just so happens also that the Tánaiste can deliver some new jobs to her own constituency while the people of Mayo will be left to suffer.”
The HSE for its part said in a statement that as part of the National Ambulance Strategy, it is moving towards operating a reduced number of control centres which it believes “will provide an even more enhanced service to the public. As part of that strategy the HSE plans to transfer the services currently being provided by the control centre in Castlebar to a newly designed facility in Ballyshannon.” The switch over of the service is planned to take place over a phased basis and it will involve consultation with staff working in both facilities.
However Cllr Kilcoyne has hit out at broken promises to the staff in the Castlebar centre in relation to their jobs. “There are 12 jobs going to be lost to Castlebar as well as the reduced quality of the service. There was a commitment made to SIPTU that the staff who were there were going to be made permanent, but now the jobs are being moved to the Tánaiste’s constituency, it’s not good enough. There has been a rolling home for the service in Mayo over the last number of years and now it’s gone. Not too long ago when you rang the ambulance, you got through to a centre in the Sacred Heart Home in Castlebar, they passed on the information to the ambulance drivers who were beside them. Then it was decided to move the centre into the Camp West base beside the fire station in the town which cost a lot of money, but then the HSE decided to go their own way again and set up the regional control centre at the back of St Mary’s Hospital, and now it’s moving to Donegal. They must have spent at least €1 million on this moving about. It is the people of Mayo will be affected with this centre being moved out of the county.”
The HSE says that the quality of service will not be disrupted by the move to Ballyshannon: “It is essential to stress that this move will have no impact on the ambulance service provided in the region. In fact we are currently adding to our paramedic front line staff complement in the western region [Mayo, Galway and Roscommon]. An additional seven front line paramedics have started work in the region this week, with a further six new paramedics to begin with us in the next number of weeks — in total 17 extra paramedics have joined the ambulance service this year in the western region.”
In the region, approval has been received for an additional three ambulance stations in mid Connacht (Knock ), Mulranny, and Tuam. Finance was received this year for the purchase of a site in Mulranny which should be completed by the end of October.
