Jennifer Murnane O’ Connor has raised concerns over an ambulance shortage in Carlow in the Seanad.
Reports yesterday claimed that Carlow and other counties are regularly left with just one ambulance on duty.
Speaking in the upper house Senator Murnane O’ Connor said recently paramedics in Carlow were sent to cover an incident in Hook head in Wexford before transferring a patient on to Waterford University hospital.
She said incidents like this are a regular occurrence and called for the matter to be addressed urgently.
Meanwhile 18 months to two years is the time-frame that’s been given for Carlow’s paramedics to be moved into a permanent base in St Dympna’s Hospital.
Upgrade works on their temporary prefab base are now almost completed.
Money was granted for those works after staff threatened to leave it in protest at the conditions there last October.
Carlow Deputy Pat Deering raised the matter recently with the Health Minister, and he told KCLR News that the ambulance workers are pleased with the progress.
