Heart surgery man’s 240km taxi ride to Dublin hospital

A MAN awaiting heart surgery had to be transferred by taxi from his hospital bed in Donegal to Dublin because there was no ambulance available.

The patient had waited for a month in Letterkenny University Hospital before a bed became available in St James’s on June 5. However, due to a shortage of emergency vehicles, the HSE had to use a taxi to take the patient on the 240km trip to Dublin.

Donegal councillor Gerry Crawford said that he was ‘embarrassed’, adding that there were ‘no excuses’ for what he claimed was a HSE systems failure. Cllr Crawford, a member of the Regional Health Forum and a retired ambulance driver, said it was a very serious incident.

‘I’m led to believe that the hospital had informed Letterkenny that the bed could not be held if the patient did not arrive in Dublin on that Monday,’ he said.

‘This patient was in Letterkenny occupying a bed for a month but when a bed becomes available in Dublin the ambulance service failed to provide the necessary service. It’s shocking.’

Paudie O’Riordan, chief ambulance officer with the National Ambulance Service, explained: ‘If delays are envisaged, regular updates are provided regarding the availability of an Intermediate Care Vehicle to complete request; however, due to the demand on the non-emergency transfers, these may not be carried out on the same day as booking.’

However, Cllr Crawford said: ‘The patient had to undergo heart surgery and the ambulance tasked with the transfer didn’t arrive and that is a systems failure – plain and simple.’