Vol. 506 No. 1
70 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will investigate the possibility of permanently basing an ambulance in Cobh, County Cork; if he will report on the situation with regard to ambulance services in Cobh; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14804/99]
The provision of ambulance services in the Cork area is the statutory responsibility of the Southern Health Board. The question of having an ambulance based permanently in Cobh has been the subject of examination over a number of years. At present, ambulance cover for the Cobh area is provided by Midleton and secondly from Cork City. The number of ambulance calls and response times are monitored by the health board on an ongoing basis and they have informed me that there has been no appreciable change in either the volume of calls or response times in recent years.
A review of emergency ambulance cover provided in the Southern Health Board region was adopted by the board in 1997. This report identified a number of areas where additional cover may be needed and that the additional cover would be developed and reviewed over a period of five years. The report also considered the case for basing an ambulance at Cobh and found that such a proposal was not justified, on the basis that the potential for improving the emergency cover to the eastern approaches to Cork city and Cobh was best served by an additional ambulance based at Midleton and operating in the Carrigtwohill area by day.
Much progress is being made in the quality of service, training and crewing ambulance with professionally qualified emergency medical technicians. The upgrading of the Midleton service in December 1998, whereby the ambulance is crewed by two emergency medical technicians on duty by day rather than "on-call" is impacting favourably on the provision of emergency cover in the Cobh area.
