A CORK TD has told the Dáil that he drove a young woman to a hospital four minutes away from them after being told the next available ambulance was 40 minutes away.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould, relayed to the House an incident that occurred in Cork city when he and his family assisted a young woman who had collapsed.

Mr Gould said he had decided to bring the woman to the Mercy Hospital, a four-minute journey, after a 999 dispatcher had said an ambulance would take 40 minutes to reach them.

The northside TD said that, in another incident, a Sinn Féin councillor had stayed with a pregnant woman who had collapsed at the side of a road for almost an hour before an ambulance arrived.

Mr Gould said the pressure that paramedics in Cork were under was due to the Government’s continued failure to adequately resource the National Ambulance Service.

“In Cork and Kerry, response times for ambulance care have risen by over 70% since 2019,” Mr Gould said.

“This puts huge pressure on paramedics and those working in the ambulance service.”

Speaking on a Private Members’ Bill proposed by the Regional Independents Dáil grouping, Mr Gould said his party had tabled a similar motion the night before, which he said demonstrated that the Opposition was united in recognising the crisis in the emergency services.

He said he had met paramedics with the Sinn Féin spokesperson on health, David Cullinane, in 2021, when they had outlined the crisis they were facing, but, Mr Gould said, the situation was much worse now.

“Shockingly, 72% of life-threatening incidents are left without a response for longer than 19 minutes, which is the target that is given. 

"This is way off-target. It is not the fault of the paramedics or the National Ambulance Service, but it is the Government’s fault,” Mr Gould told Minister of State at the Department of Health Hildegarde Naughton.

“The Minister of State is a member of Fine Gael, which has been in power for 12 years. The minister and others in government say they are working on it, or, as the Minister of State said earlier, they are learning. I do not know how long it takes the Government to learn, but it should have learned by now.

“This crisis has been with us for some time” Mr Gould said, adding he was not making the matter a personal issue for Ms Naughton, but rather, he said, it was about the Government and Fine Gael’s attitude towards healthcare, especially toward the ambulance service.

“I have had to ring the ambulance service numerous times for constituents,” he said. “I raise two particular cases. In one, a Sinn Féin councillor met a lady who was distressed. She was pregnant and had collapsed at the side of the road. She was alone and afraid. He stayed with her for almost an hour before an ambulance arrived.

“There was an incident where I was in Cork city with my family and a young woman collapsed. When I rang 999, I was told an ambulance would take over 40 minutes,” Mr Gould said.

“Mercy University Hospital was four minutes away and Cork University Hospital was 10 minutes away but all the ambulances were queued up, unable to offload patients because of the crisis we have in emergency departments. We had to put the young lady into my car to get her to the Mercy hospital because the ambulance service would have taken over 40 minutes.”