Ambulance services & HSE climbdown to unions again

[cancer]

Before I post over this obscenity I think it best I confirm that the article I read is true - paper never refuses ink and all that, and I found the story so grotesquely unbelieveable that it might be no harm being certain of its authenticity before I speak about this act of barbaric cruelty which will be inflicted on patients.

Front page of the Sunday Business Post carried an article stating that Private Ambulance Services are being withdrawn after the threat of strike action by the Public Ambulance Service workers in response to these Private Services. It stated that the HSE caved in to SIPTUs demands and one of the companies mentioned 'Lifeline Services' believing it had a 2 year contract has had its contract withdrawn after 6 months. It is now taking legal action.

Can someone let me know if this is true.

[Clanrickard]

Before I post over this obscenity I think it best I confirm that the article I read is true - paper never refuses ink and all that, and I found the story so grotesquely unbelieveable that it might be no harm being certain of its authenticity before I speak about this act of barbaric cruelty which will be inflicted on patients.

Front page of the Sunday Business Post carried an article stating that Private Ambulance Services are being withdrawn after the threat of strike action by the Public Ambulance Service workers in response to these Private Services. It stated that the HSE caved in to SIPTUs demands and one of the companies mentioned 'Lifeline Services' believing it had a 2 year contract has had its contract withdrawn after 6 months. It is now taking legal action.

Can someone let me know if this is true.

Probably but don't highlight this or the leftards will be hystercially ranting calling you a PD and saying you want to bring evil bloodsucking vampire capitalists from the US to deprive us of our god given right to have all the health care we want when we want it and not have to pay a single penny for any of it.

[cancer]

Thanks but don't care if I come across as a right wing crazy - Health Services all lefties will agree are for the people or more precisely the ill. Here is my story in defence of Private Ambulance Services.

It was going wrong. The nurses and the doctors were flooding in and out of the room. The morphine was working, I felt ok. Ok 'half out of it' but that's ok. I had moved out of a major acute hospital about 8 days ago for specialist treatment in a smaller more dedicated hospital for radiotherapy treatment. Anyways there was a problem and they were shifting me back to my original acute hospital. There was a problem. They could not get an ambulance - Tuesday evening 6:50 time check for anyone who is interested. No public ambulance available. I have private health insurance (Plan D) even though I was predominently seen publicly and still am - some illnesses can't be handled in the private 'made to order' hospitals. Anyways this was getting serious. Private ambulance was onsite and offered to take me. Paperwork arranged. Off I go. Straight in to new hospital - some more stuff ahead of me. The hospital infection I had picked up had caused some serious life threatening complications - as if having a primary and secondary Cancer wasn't bad enough.

Fast forward 1-2 months and I have a daily routine. I am at a major acute hospital and it is roughly 10am. The two lads both from the midlands knock on the door. My wife goes down and gets the nurse for the paperwork. The lad from Mullingar always supports me for the 6 steps from the bed to the stretcher. It is lowered so I can get in. Paperwork signed, nurse says goodbye, lift to basement and pushed up into ambulance and off we go to the other hospital I mentioned above. We arrive. My wife goes ahead of us. Lads wheel me into the radiotherapy waiting area and pop off for a cup of tea / coffee. I have MRSA so the public toilet is closed for my use and I am based at the wall directly across from the entrance. Only I can use it. After 10-15 minutes I get called in. The lads come back, they lower the stretcher / trolley and they or the nurse walk me in the 14 steps for treatment. 8 minutes of zapping later I walk 14 steps back and am brought back to the acute hospital. Once they agreed to stick on the siren as a personal request and shur I always wanted to be in an ambulance with the siren sounding as a kid- always thought it was bags of fun.

Sorry this is longwinded but feel this needs to be said.

Few weeks have passed and one day something comes up. Not sure what but there is a mistake in the time of my treatment, the private ambulance has not been booked and a little drama develops. One of many that happens in my ward most days. The private operator is looking for spare capacity but it has already been booked up. With that a request goes out to see if a Public Ambulance can be arranged. My wife goes with a nurse (she may not have been a nurse to be fair but can't be 100% sure) and they go down to admin and after an hour it appears to be resolved. The private operator can send an ambulance for me between a drop off and pick up. However after getting the commitment I am told there is a Public Ambulance available. An hour and a half has passed and it is coming up to noon.

An orderly arrives and leaves the stretcher outside the door for me to get in to. He goes up the nurses station, I presumed to check paperwork. My wife tries to support me but I fall on my left hand side. My colostomo bag(number 2 holder for those of you who do not know what it is) which is only a small bit full spills out and covers me down to my knee. My wife can't lift me up so she rings the alarm for a nurse and after about 10 secs of watching me covered in it on the floor unable to pull myself up goes to the door and calls for one. Fast forward about half an hour and I am cleaned up. The orderly and male nurse help me to the trolley and I am on my down to the ambulance area. When I arrive the ambulance guys are having a chat. After 2 minutes in the fresh air (bloody freezing to me) I get brought in to the ambulance. As my stretcher is fastened the private ambulance arrives. My wife suggests we take it as they are used to me. They say no need and pull off. I vomit as always on the way but they have no vomit paper hats so I kind of half cover the floor and few hankies.

I arrive at the other hospital for treatment and I am wheeled out. I am wheeled into the orderly area for the other hospital rather than brought to the treatment area. It is about 2:30 when I finally get to treatment. I am told on arrival that I have missed my slot and I will have to wait. I get seen at 4. I am well out of it. I have not had my afternoon meds and I am suffering. I am seriouly dozing in and out of it. Nurses and radiotherapists doing everything then can but these things happen. I finsh at about 4:15 and I wait by the patient area waiting for an ambulance. I am now in bits. Seriously out of it. The hospital is worried because of my infections and the fact that my deeply worried wife is starting to get troublesome due to the state of me. They tell me at 6 they still can't get an ambulance for me. We ask why there should be no problem at this time. They then explain that they have only been trying to get a Public Ambulance but there is none available. A little after 6:30 I need to go to the toilet. An orderly arrives but it is obvious I need 2 to carry me in.

About 7 o'clock my wife lets loose and demands the number for a private ambulance company. She gets it and rings in. They explain that because I went with the Public Ambulance I have to go back with them. My wife escalates the matter with both the hospital and the private operator and they agree an exception. I have an ambulance within 20 minutes and I am back in my regular bed before 9.

Now before someone goes and says s**t happens which it does and that one days was a once off. I would like to add to the two examples above.

My PublicAmbulance Trip happened on a Monday. On the Wednesday a major national newspaper ran with a front page story of an elderly lady in her 70s who was seriously ill and was having treatment like me in another hospital. The storys headline said it all

ELDERLY WOMaN LEFT WAITING FOR 10 HOURS

That's right someone waiting on a Public Ambulance - 10 hours - 70 years of age - seriously ill!

If I was your father or she was your mother would you like this sort of ambulance service. And before someone says we should invest more in ambulances, why not get off the high horse and start with 'Patients matter first'.

I am sickened by the HSE decision this week and the union vested interests in maintaining a status quo that suits their members and not people like me and an old lady in her seventies.

There are many more people out there like me and that old lady!

[socialdemocrate]

it was the lifeline guys who helped at that car crash in tipperary with all the kids, they played a stormer and saved lives, well done! A lot of them are bettter trained than the public ones as well ( no disrespect meant), they did advanced paramedic and fire brigade courses in the states. Plus they sanatise their ambulances, the public ones dont

[goosebump]

Thanks but don't care if I come across as a right wing crazy - Health Services all lefties will agree are for the people or more precisely the ill.

No, the lefties don't agree with this.

Health Services are for playing on peoples fears and insecurities to promote idealogies. They prefer to see people suffer while waiting for the imaginary public hospitals they are going to build when they get into power than see them treated in private hospitals that actually exist.

[Coggy]

Thanks but don't care if I come across as a right wing crazy - Health Services all lefties will agree are for the people or more precisely the ill.

No, the lefties don't agree with this.

Health Services are for playing on peoples fears and insecurities to promote ideologies. They prefer to see people suffer while waiting for the imaginary public hospitals they are going to build when they get into power than see them treated in private hospitals that actually exist.

I'm sorry but you lot can ramble on to each other and feel like your actually getting somewhere but your not and no matter how you put it , whether its just attacking "ideologies" or telling your own little story their is NO argument for private health care over public .

Health care is for the Ill but the people who promote private insurance don't believe this , if they do why do insurance companies have that big long list of illnesses that if you have you CAN'T get insurance , so private health care promotes health care for the people who can pay and who are not sick it makes absolutely no sense unless your end goal is not to treat people but to make profit and that as we all know is their main goal .

[odie1kanobe]

Thanks but don't care if I come across as a right wing crazy - Health Services all lefties will agree are for the people or more precisely the ill.

No, the lefties don't agree with this.

Health Services are for playing on peoples fears and insecurities to promote ideologies. They prefer to see people suffer while waiting for the imaginary public hospitals they are going to build when they get into power than see them treated in private hospitals that actually exist.

I'm sorry but you lot can ramble on to each other and feel like your actually getting somewhere but your not and no matter how you put it , whether its just attacking "ideologies" or telling your own little story their is NO argument for private health care over public .

Health care is for the Ill but the people who promote private insurance don't believe this , if they do why do insurance companies have that big long list of illnesses that if you have you CAN'T get insurance , so private health care promotes health care for the people who can pay and who are not sick it makes absolutely no sense unless your end goal is not to treat people but to make profit and that as we all know is their main goal .

An Ambulance is not health care its a transportation service and people have a right to have the best service available and not one hamstrung by Unions with a vested interest in getting as much as they can for as little work as they can.

The leftist rhetoric of Its about people is garbage as they care little about people but just furthering their cause.

[Coggy]

Thanks but don't care if I come across as a right wing crazy - Health Services all lefties will agree are for the people or more precisely the ill.

No, the lefties don't agree with this.

Health Services are for playing on peoples fears and insecurities to promote ideologies. They prefer to see people suffer while waiting for the imaginary public hospitals they are going to build when they get into power than see them treated in private hospitals that actually exist.

I'm sorry but you lot can ramble on to each other and feel like your actually getting somewhere but your not and no matter how you put it , whether its just attacking "ideologies" or telling your own little story their is NO argument for private health care over public .

Health care is for the Ill but the people who promote private insurance don't believe this , if they do why do insurance companies have that big long list of illnesses that if you have you CAN'T get insurance , so private health care promotes health care for the people who can pay and who are not sick it makes absolutely no sense unless your end goal is not to treat people but to make profit and that as we all know is their main goal .

An Ambulance is not health care its a transportation service and people have a right to have the best service available and not one hamstrung by Unions with a vested interest in getting as much as they can for as little work as they can.

The leftist rhetoric of Its about people is garbage as they care little about people but just furthering their cause.

An ambulance service is not health care .... are you joking me ..................... .

People do have the right to the best services around , but your idea of a good ambulance service lets those who can pay get a better service then those who can't . Health care should never be profit driven ,everyone no matter race or class or anything deserves universal free health care . The private system has been shown time and time again to be an absolute joke.

Its typical again of your lot "leftist rhetoric" "those evil unions" your arguments around health care are so pityful that you have to resort to sad arguments once again .

[Mootooth]

Private ambulances? That's a disgrace.

[cancer]

Health care should not be about Public or Private but CARE.
Our health services are not free, unless you have a medical card.
Everyone else pays.
The rich canalways pay.
The middle classes get screwed unless they have private health care!

IS THERE ANYONE WHO DISAGRESS WITH THESE BASIC FACTS.

Moving on.

If you are middle class and you have stayed in a public hospital why would you pay for 'services' when you can get them for much the same price privately, which if it was a known standard procedure / operation you would get a more comfortable experience. I am not saying better health care as in treatment just oit is a better experience from a comfortable viewpoint.

If patients are entitled to care and service and all Governments have shown one consistency - a failure to find the money to build new hospitals (McCreevey doubled the health service budget and I never saw a new hosptial - DOUBLED!). Surely the best way to free up public services is to allow private health care deal with thpse patients and those treatments that they can deal with.

Lifeline Ambulance services which is what I initially posted about helped me greatly as I was transferred from a semi private ward in a public hospital to the radiotherapy treatment unit in another public hospital. I had been in a coma over 3 weeks. I had picked up MRSA for either the first or second time. I was being fed morphine intravenously through a pump into my stomach every 10 seconds and I needed assistance to walk anythong over 2-3 steps. Do you really feel it is appropraite that I should have relied on a public ambulance service which left me and a seventy year old lady waiting for hours on a trolley every day. Surely support of the health service over all others thoughts does not extend this far.

We are now in a recession - the public health service will not get any more money. It isn't there to give. Stop knocking the obvious solution in providing the quickest form of improved patient care through the private health service. Who cares if they make a profit so long as patients get care!