This article is from page 30 of the 2007-06-19 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 30 JPG
THE future of an ambulance base for Shannon must be clarified as a matter of urgency, according to the mayor of Shannon.
Councillor Tony McMahon (La- bour) is seeking clarification on the issue, which has been on the cards for a long time.
A letter, sent by Acting Chief Am- bulance Officer Pat Daly to Shannon Town Clerk Tomas McCormaic last month, said that a spatial analysis will be carried out on the service in the Mid west area in the near fu- REN Ken
Mr Daly stated that future capital infrastructural developments will
be reviewed and prioritised on a na- tional basis.
He said that a review was commis- sioned in December 2003 and com- pleted in September 2004. Propos- als included in the review included an ambulance station for Shannon.
‘However, this was prior to the es- tablishment of a national ambulance service,’ said Mr Daly, in his letter.
Councillor McMahon said Shan- non has been identified as needing an ambulance base, but progress has not been forthcoming.
“Just because the responsibility for the service has been moved to an- other body doesn’t mean our needs have changed,’ said Cllr McMahon.
He said that a spatial analysis was
“nonsense”.
“What has a spatial analysis got to do with a service of that nature in Shannon?” he asked.
“It 1s another example of the typi- cal kind of thing that is done to Shannon. There are a lot of reasons why there should be an ambulance in Shannon. What I am talking about is a service to get people from A to B. I don’t care what they call it, an ambulance car or a helicopter,’ he added.
Last year, the Shannon Ambulance Action Group collected signatures for a petition, demanding that plans for an ambulance base be situated in the town. They are concerned that no major progress has been made,
since then.
Green Party councillor Brian Meaney said he will raise the issue at a meeting of the Health Service Executive later this month.
He pointed out that the key issue is quick response times, rather than the location of the ambulance bases.
“IT would be very concerned if there are issues in relation to response times,” said Cllr Meaney.
“Essentially it doesn’t matter where the ambulance station is. If there is a disparity between response times across the county, then there 1s an 1s- Sue,’ he said.
“There is an ongoing review of the ambulance services in the region,’ he added.