Girl (19) dies on 2 hour ambulance ride to hospital

the_syco

http://www.midwestradio.ie/mwr/news/9653-family-of-roscommon-teenager-who-died-in-ambulance-following-road-collision-call-for-reopening-of-roscommon-hospital-a-a-e-unit.html

An ambulance arrived at the scene within about 20 minutes of the accident, and because the Roscommon Hospital A & E was closed, it was decided to take Elaine to Portiuncla in Ballinasloe.
Initial problems began when a local at the scene of the crash gave the ambulance crew directions which led them down a bogland road.
The ambulance had almost reached the hospital when it was diverted to University Hospital Galway, on the advice of a doctor in Ballinasloe, adding an extra half-hour to the journey.

How about we blame the doctor? Nearly reached Portiuncla in Ballinasloe when diverted? Or maybe the local that gave sh|te directions? Or whomever thought they should goto Portiuncla in the first place?

mediwheel wrote: »

The people involved in the collision are to blame not the ambulance service. Every road traffic collision is someone's fault.

According to the Gardai, it was a "single vehicle road traffic collision" that occurred when she hit the ditch on that Sunday night.

mediwheel

the_syco wrote: »

http://www.midwestradio.ie/mwr/news/9653-family-of-roscommon-teenager-who-died-in-ambulance-following-road-collision-call-for-reopening-of-roscommon-hospital-a-a-e-unit.html

An ambulance arrived at the scene within about 20 minutes of the accident, and because the Roscommon Hospital A & E was closed, it was decided to take Elaine to Portiuncla in Ballinasloe.
Initial problems began when a local at the scene of the crash gave the ambulance crew directions which led them down a bogland road.
The ambulance had almost reached the hospital when it was diverted to University Hospital Galway, on the advice of a doctor in Ballinasloe, adding an extra half-hour to the journey.

How about we blame the doctor? Nearly reached Portiuncla in Ballinasloe when diverted? Or maybe the local that gave sh|te directions? Or whomever thought they should goto Portiuncla in the first place?

mediwheel wrote: »

The people involved in the collision are to blame not the ambulance service. Every road traffic collision is someone's fault.

According to the Gardai, it was a "single vehicle road traffic collision" that occurred when she hit the ditch on that Sunday night.

Well there you go, unfortunately she caused her own death.

wp_rathead

seamus wrote: »

I would hold most anger at the local who directed an ambulance down a poor route. If you don't know the route, just say you don't know!

..really?

That is what is getting you angry about this story..

..wow..

KeithM89_old

mediwheel wrote: »

Was wondering if your a fat gob****e in a small car ! Or a small gob****e in a big car ! A go-wan tell us the color even ?

Banned.

the_syco

seamus wrote: »

I would hold most anger at the local who directed an ambulance down a poor route. If you don't know the route, just say you don't know!

The poor bastard will probably drink themselves to death. The main article says that the chances of her surviving were pretty slim, so how about you blame her lousy driving?

suicide_circus

How is the locals fault!?

The ambulance took 20mins to get to the scene. That's 20mins the medics could have been making rough plans of their routes to the nearest hospitals and getting on the radio and checking which hospita which was ready to receive a RTA casualty.

markpb

suicide_circus wrote: »

How is the locals fault!?

The ambulance took 20mins to get to the scene. That's 20mins the medics could have been making rough plans of their routes to the nearest hospitals and getting on the radio and checking which hospita which was ready to receive a RTA casualty.

Maybe they used those 20 minutes to find their way to the scene and prepare for what was ahead of them? Maybe they couldn't make a decision about where to bring her until they saw what medical care she needed.

tmc86

Victor wrote: »

You are all being utterly disingenuous. The only difference is that she would have died in Roscommon and not Galway.

She would never have survived anyway!

There is no need for such large bold text with an exclamation mark, honestly this is a sensitive topic I would expect you to have bit more respect particularly since you are a moderator.

You could have just made your point like everyone else.

Even if your point was true it doesn't take anything away from the issue. In fact it highlights the problem even more because if it were another person in a similar situation, with a higher survival % then they too might not have been able to receive treatment in time. So at least a situation has been brought to the public's attention and hopefully something will be done to prevent any further tragedies.

UDP

tmc86 wrote: »

There is no need for such large bold text with an exclamation mark, honestly this is a sensitive topic I would expect you to have bit more respect particularly since you are a moderator.

You could have just made your point like everyone else.

Even if your point was true it doesn't take anything away from the issue. In fact it highlights the problem even more because if it were another person in a similar situation, with a higher survival % then they too might not have been able to receive treatment in time. So at least a situation has been brought to the public's attention and hopefully something will be done to prevent any further tragedies.

Not only have experts said she wouldn't have survived but also Roscommon would not have been able to deal with the case considering Ballinasloe could not. Either way she was going to have to go to Galway.

Unless there was negligence from someone else with regards the road or the car it was the woman's fault she was in that situation. It is awful to see this girls death being hijacked to push the agenda of Roscommon hostpital even though it has no relevance. I can understand the parents blaming the hospital as they don't want to blame their own daughter for the accident but the amount of idiots jumping on the bandwagon is unreal.

tmc86

UDP wrote: »

It is awful to see this girls death being hijacked to push the agenda of Roscommon hostpital even though it has no relevance.

In my opinon I think it does have relevance because if the A&E was open the poor girl would have been taken there regardless or not of her injuries and survival chances, therefore

1. There might have been even the slightest chance of survival and any chance no matter how small is worth fighting for
2. There would have been slightly less emotional impact on all involved (do not take this the wrong way)
3. It highlights the problem that a similar situation may happen in the future.

I agree with you in the sense that the thread has shifted in topic but I think in these situations thats how things change and move forward. Not necessarily on our level but greater awareness is created and those who do have a vested interest might move forward and do something constructive.

Unfortunately without this tragedy most of us would be none the wiser and its events and issues like these that lead us to form our own political opinons and raise awareness about the problems that exist as a result of some of the decisions of this country's leaders.

davet82

tmc86 wrote: »

Even if your point was true it doesn't take anything away from the issue. In fact it highlights the problem even more because if it were another person in a similar situation, with a higher survival % then they too might not have been able to receive treatment in time.

UDP wrote: »

It is awful to see this girls death being hijacked to push the agenda of Roscommon hostpital even though it has no relevance.

I dont think its been hijacked (explained in first quote). I think its a genuine warning that lives maybe lost because of the A&E being shut down. The girls family also stated that maybe their daughters death may not be in vain if it highlights the issue, i dont really get what the problem is?

seamus

1. There might have been even the slightest chance of survival and any chance no matter how small is worth fighting for

Nope. She would have been bounced by Roscommon. If there was an A&E in Roscommon, they would have sent her elsewhere.

2. There would have been slightly less emotional impact on all involved (do not take this the wrong way)

Irrelevant. You don't open an A&E out of some emotional perception.

3. It highlights the problem that a similar situation may happen in the future.

Irrelevant. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, a young man was killed in a road accident in Buncrana yesterday. Does that mean we should build an A&E in Buncrana? Of course not.

This single incident does not justify reopening an A&E and it doesn't prove that closing an A&E was the wrong decision.

UDP

tmc86 wrote: »

In my opinon I think it does have relevance because if the A&E was open the poor girl would have been taken there regardless or not of her injuries and survival chances,

Not necessarily considering that Ballinasloe did not even take her in while she was actually still alive.

tmc86 wrote: »

Unfortunately without this tragedy most of us would be none the wiser and its events and issues like these that lead us to form our own political opinons and raise awareness about the problems that exist as a result of some of the decisions of this country's leaders.

This event is to do with an ambulance not having the most efficient route to the hospital (is there anything that can be done to help ambulance drivers make the best decision possible) and road safety in that - why did this woman crash? Driving too fast for the conditions?, Issues with the road? Issues with the car? etc.
This issue has nothing to do with Roscommon hospital being closed. The parents just wanted to blame anyone but their own daughter which I can understand given the hurt being felt.

tmc86

seamus wrote: »

Irrelevant. You don't open an A&E out of some emotional perception.
Irrelevant. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, a young man was killed in a road accident in Buncrana yesterday. Does that mean we should build an A&E in Buncrana? Of course not.

Fair point about emotional perception but I think you misunderstood me and the issue of the A&E closure.

No one has said that we should build an A&E, the A&E was already in existence and then was closed. So if it was already there and there was a chance of re-opening it should this not be looked into further. Its a completely different thing to building a new one from scratch in Buncrana.

The Buncrana incident is irrelvant to the discussion of the A&E closure.

seamus

tmc86 wrote: »

So if it was already there and there was a chance of re-opening it should this not be looked into further.

Not on the basis of a single incident.

Come back when you have a pattern of emergency cases which have resulted in significantly poorer outcomes that could have been avoided if Roscommon was available.

veryangryman

seamus wrote: »

Not on the basis of a single incident.

Come back when you have a pattern of emergency cases which have resulted in significantly poorer outcomes that could have been avoided if Roscommon was available.

So what your saying is that we should close the door after the horse has bolted.

You realise that when someone is dead, their dead. They cant be brought back to life if/when the government decides "Ah this pattern of emergency cases is worrying"

seamus

veryangryman wrote: »

So what your saying is that we should close the door after the horse has bolted.

So you suggest that we build A&Es everywhere and then start closing the ones that aren't being used?

Oh look, that's exactly what we've done.

Roscommon did have an A&E. It wasn't cost effective (i.e. it wasn't really needed), so it was closed. If you think it should be reopened, you need to make a case for it.

tmc86

seamus wrote: »

Not on the basis of a single incident.

Come back when you have a pattern of emergency cases which have resulted in significantly poorer outcomes that could have been avoided if Roscommon was available.

And do you think the local community would agree with this? Tell them to wait for the next couple of incidents before anything can be looked into?

Its easy to look at this issue living in a different part of the country but if you lived nearby and were part of the local community I'd think you'd have a different opinion.

Also I'm sure that this isn't the only incident I'm sure many many people have been affected by the closure.

UDP

tmc86 wrote: »

And do you think the local community would agree with this? Tell them to wait for the next couple of incidents before anything can be looked into?

What the local community think about it is irrelevant as these are not hospitals put in place to solely serve the local community.

We cannot have a hospital for every local community so why should one local community have a hospital and not another. It has to be about the bigger picture and the overall population distributions around the country and distance to the services for those populations. If it does not make sense from that bigger picture point of view then the hospital needs to be closed and services moved to a location that does make sense. I believe thats what happened in this instance.

tmc86 wrote: »

Its easy to look at this issue living in a different part of the country but if you lived nearby and were part of the local community I'd think you'd have a different opinion.

Then we are back to the same issue again. Lets build hospitals in every local community.

tmc86 wrote: »

Also I'm sure that this isn't the only incident I'm sure many many people have been affected by the closure.

and many others in many other places are affected by not having an A&E department in their local community.

So should services be moved to locations that make the most sense for the overall population or should we aim to have all services available in every community? Its either one or the other. We cannot afford the latter as it is not practical unless you want to pay 80% income tax.

seamus

tmc86 wrote: »

And do you think the local community would agree with this? Tell them to wait for the next couple of incidents before anything can be looked into?

Its easy to look at this issue living in a different part of the country but if you lived nearby and were part of the local community I'd think you'd have a different opinion.

What the locals think is irrelevant.

If we built an A&E in Borris-in-Ossory and then tried to close it a year later, I'm sure the locals would go mental and claim that we were putting lives at risk, even though they never asked for an A&E before it was built.

You provide facilities based on what a community needs, not what it thinks it wants.

tmc86

I think it is you who is actually hijacking the thread now, I am not discussing the national A&E situation I am still talking about the Roscommon A&E.

UDP wrote: »

We cannot have a hospital for every local community so why should one local community have a hospital and not another. It has to be about the bigger picture and the overall population distributions around the country and distance to the services for those populations. If it does not make sense from that bigger picture point of view then the hospital needs to be closed and services moved to a location that does make sense. I believe thats what happened in this instance.

Then we are back to the same issue again. Lets build hospitals in every local community.

We are not back to the same issue as no one has even mentioned building A&E's let alone in every community so I don't know which thread you are following but its certainly not this one.

In my mind the local community of the Roscommon A&E is any person/town/village that used the service. I'm not solely talking about Roscommon habitants whereas I think that you assumed I meant the local town community when refering to the local community. Maybe it was my use of the word "community" so I apologise for my ambiguity and I think our differing definitions have caused some miscommunication.

davet82

UDP wrote: »

We cannot afford the latter as it is not practical unless you want to pay 80% income tax.

its amazing the amount of shíte we can afford though... the list is endless when it comes to the amount of money being wasted

seamus wrote: »

What the locals think is irrelevant.

You provide facilities based on what a community needs, not what it thinks it wants.

democracy


look i get what you guys are saying but i think its not as clear cut, it is easier to justify not building something but taking away what you had is harder.

idk i live within 15 mins of 4 major hospitals and i feel lucky to do so, if it were my services being cut i'd like some support from my fellow irishman too. I'm no expert on these matters and maybe you guys are totally right but i'd love to see some independant review from the medical proffession and their views not some accountant or some political biased opinions.

Ash.J.Williams

chin_grin wrote: »

And this is supposed to be funny, how?

because that's what happened

seamus

davet82 wrote: »

democracy

Health provision is a national issue, so healthcare must be provided on the basis of what's best for the entire population, not what individual towns want. I'm sure every town would love their own A&E.

It's actually this kind of democracy, "We want therefore give it to us" that ruined this country, with the likes of the Healy-Raes easily being bought by governments on the back of promises of major hospitals in minor towns.

UDP

tmc86 wrote: »

I think it is you who is actually hijacking the thread now, I am not discussing the national A&E situation I am still talking about the Roscommon A&E.

UDP wrote: »

We cannot have a hospital for every local community so why should one local community have a hospital and not another. It has to be about the bigger picture and the overall population distributions around the country and distance to the services for those populations. If it does not make sense from that bigger picture point of view then the hospital needs to be closed and services moved to a location that does make sense. I believe thats what happened in this instance.

Then we are back to the same issue again. Lets build hospitals in every local community.

We are not back to the same issue as no one has even mentioned building A&E's let alone in every community so I don't know which thread you are following but its certainly not this one.

In my mind the local community of the Roscommon A&E is any person/town/village that used the service. I'm not solely talking about Roscommon habitants whereas I think that you assumed I meant the local town community when refering to the local community. Maybe it was my use of the word "community" so I apologise for my ambiguity and I think our differing definitions have caused some miscommunication.

You need to look at the distribution of services in the entire region - if not the entire country. You cannot just look at one hospital in isolation. I believe that is what the HSE were/are trying to achieve as it brings about cost savings naturally. I'm not saying that they are perfect at achieving this goal but that argument about local communities etc are irrelevant. Its population distributions in the entire country that matter i.e. where are the best locations around to country that serve the most populations.

When changes are made some people will end up further from services than they were before others will end up nearer - that is just the way things work. You cannot have everyone right beside an a&e department.

The only argument that can be made is from research of whether a greater percentage of people are worse off by closing down services in the overall country taking into account the cost of the service per person in the catchment area. Its not perfect but there is no other way to do it. We have a limited budget unless people are willing to pay extra income tax to fund more health services.

Dude111

Very sad.... Poor girl

coolmoose

suicide_circus wrote: »

How is the locals fault!?

The ambulance took 20mins to get to the scene. That's 20mins the medics could have been making rough plans of their routes to the nearest hospitals and getting on the radio and checking which hospita which was ready to receive a RTA casualty.

Nope, that's not how it works. Yet again, everyone knows how to be a paramedic. You assess the patient first, then decide upon the most appropriate receiving facility, taking into account protocols for trauma patients etc. Any facility can take an RTA patient - that's too general an assessment, hence why you wait until you assess the patient.

Never pre-empt a scene or patient, because that's when you overlook something and make a mistake. Also, who's to say the routes you decide upon are accessible? The RTA itself could easily have a main road closed, or your route of choice closed.

If you have time en-route you discuss your roles at the scene, possible scenarios etc. Most importantly, you work out how to get there as fast as possible. Getting from the scene to the hospital can be dealt with once ready to roll. Bear in mind, you can be at scene anything up to 2 hours with some difficult extrications.

IMO no point bringing someone like this girl to a rural A&E dept, would have made no difference - she needed surgery. Hence the bypass protocols.

markpb wrote: »

Maybe they used those 20 minutes to find their way to the scene and prepare for what was ahead of them? Maybe they couldn't make a decision about where to bring her until they saw what medical care she needed.

Exactly.

UDP wrote: »

is there anything that can be done to help ambulance drivers make the best decision possible

Sorry I'm gonna be pedantic now, but we're not ambulance drivers. We're Paramedics and Advanced Paramedics. To term what we do as merely driving an ambulance is an insult to our profession, responsibilities and education.

UDP

coolmoose wrote: »

Sorry I'm gonna be pedantic now, but we're not ambulance drivers. We're Paramedics and Advanced Paramedics. To term what we do as merely driving an ambulance is an insult to our profession, responsibilities and education.

Apologies, if you look back at my previous posts I did use paramedics. I was just simplifying to specifically speak about the paramedic driving the ambulance.

davet82

seamus wrote: »

Health provision is a national issue, so healthcare must be provided on the basis of what's best for the entire population, not what individual towns want. I'm sure every town would love their own A&E.

It's actually this kind of democracy, "We want therefore give it to us" that ruined this country, with the likes of the Healy-Raes easily being bought by governments on the back of promises of major hospitals in minor towns.

i understand that but i'm sure you will find that the large majority would agree with the people of roscommon and surrounding areas imo, or at least symothise with their concerns? storys like this are bound to cause people concern (regardless of the outcome of the story that started this debate)

mikemac1

Nenagh and Ennis lost their nighttime A&E services

Over 80km from West Clare to Limerick Regional

We'll be having much the same thread soon, only a matter of time

Meanwhile Limerick Regional is struggling and overcrowded