A family in Portnoo had an agonising hour and a half wait for an ambulance last week when their disabled son took seriously ill, the Seanad has heard.
The boy, who has profound disabilities and liver disease, took sick with a spiking temperature and convulsions.
“This scared the life out of the family,” Senator Manus Boyle told the Seanad yesterday.
“They rang the ambulance at 9.30 p.m. It was 11 p.m. before the ambulance got there.”
The family’s ordeal has prompted Senator Boyle to once again call for a review into ambulance response times in Donegal.
Senator Boyle said that the boy’s mother hailed the paramedics as “fantastic” when they did arrive, but she is worried about how long it will take for emergency services to reach her home if her son falls ill again.
“Every day I come in here I have constituents coming to me saying how bad the ambulance service is in Donegal,” Senator Boyle told the Seanad, highlighting that this is the second incident he’s raised recently where patients have had to wait 90 minutes.
“Everybody is busy but there has to be a profound review done for Donegal. We seem to be left on our own all of the time to get things done.”
