Woman forced to wait hours for an ambulance with critically ill sister

Sunday World

a day ago

'NOT GOOD ENOUGH' |
Her sister has a heart issue and had collapsed, shortly after returning from hospital
The late Julia O'Brien (centre right) from Arklow with her sisters Ellen, Annie and Mary. Photo: Michael Kelly
Despite having a dedicated ambulance, prolonged wait times in Arklow have been a long-standing source of frustration for residents, many of whom have pointed to delays disembarking patients at hospitals, and the National Ambulance Service's (NAS) centralised system, which sees the nearest available ambulance dispatched within 90 seconds of the call.
Among those left in disbelief by the waiting times is Arklow resident Mary Byrne. She was hosting her sister, Julia O'Brien, who had just been released from the hospital, when, on July 13, Julia collapsed as she was being brought upstairs to go to bed.
Contacting 999 immediately, Mary received instructions to bring Julia to the bedroom and roll her on her side, before she waited on tenterhooks for an ambulance that seemed like it would never arrive.
'My sister had just come home from the hospital on the Friday, and she'd been in for an assessment for a heart problem for three days,' Mary recalled.
The late Julia O'Brien (centre right) from Arklow with her sisters Ellen, Annie and Mary. Photo: Michael Kelly
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'She had come up to stay with me for a few days, which was just as well, because she could've been lying on her own floor.
'We were bringing her up the stairs to bed, and all of a sudden, the two legs went from under her. I rang 999 and told them that she didn't just fall, and that she had a heart condition, and they gave me all the instructions of what to do, putting her on her side and all that.
'Somewhere along the line, we were forgotten about. I rang just before 10.50pm, and about two hours later, still no ambulance, but someone from 999 came back to me to ask if everything was okay, and said they were doing their best to get us an ambulance.
'It came at 2.15am, three and a half hours after we first called, which is just wrong – so wrong,' she continued.
'When the ambulance men came in, I asked them if they had been busy, and they said they were down in Wexford and had only recently received the call. After seeing the shape my sister was in, they also said Julia never should've been released from the hospital.
'So, she went back into the hospital on July 13 and never came out. She died on July 20.
'I don't think, even if they had come in an hour, she would've been saved. She wasn't well, but the fact that she was lying there for three and a half hours, that's the thing that my sisters and I can't get over or get our heads around.'
Moved by the messages of support she has received from the community, Mary explained how her anger drove her to tell her story, and that through highlighting the issue, she hopes changes can be made so no one else has to endure the traumatic experience.
'I was and am just so mad, I felt like I had to say something to somebody,' Mary said.
'It helps to talk, and I wanted to tell the story, because nothing will change otherwise. When it was posted online, I couldn't believe the number of people sympathising and telling their own stories about the ambulance service. Read more
'Listen, I understand how the system works. If the Arklow ambulance is up in Dublin, another one has to come up from Gorey or wherever.
'But what I can't understand is a three and a half hour wait for a woman with a heart condition who has collapsed. Something needs to be done, whether that's more treatments being available locally, in the primary care centre, or more ambulances on the road.
'We can make a load of excuses and a lot of reasons why there are delays, but it just feels like, especially for older people in Ireland today, nobody gives a damn about us.'
Responding to Mary's story, members of the Arklow community discussed the additional strain that will be placed on the service when the town's population explodes, before calling on their elected TDs to address a service already struggling to manage the seaside town's existing residents.
'We have a base here, and most of the time, people here have to wait for long periods of time. Also, another point is we have a huge new primary care centre, and people still are being sent to the hospitals for basic scans, X-rays, etc,' one commenter wrote.
'It's not good enough. This town has waited far too long.'
Another commented: 'There is an ambulance, but once it goes out on a call, we have to wait for one from another area. It's been going on for years.
'I've called ambulances and we've had one from Wexford, Wicklow, Loughlinstown and Tallaght, and this can work vice versa with our ambulance.
'In fairness to the crews, they work hard, but because everything is centralised now, they are being sent all over the place. If they get stuck at a hospital with a patient, we may wait until there is one diverted from somewhere else.'
Asked for a breakdown of the Arklow ambulance service, and how much the severity of the emergency and the Arklow ambulance being occupied (at or en route to hospital) impacts wait times, a HSE spokesperson said they cannot comment on individual cases.
Shedding some light on the overburdened service, they noted that calls for emergency service support via the 999 service have increased by over 25pc since 2019, with the NAS responding to approximately 430,000 emergency calls in 2024, and 108,915 in the first quarter of 2025.
'The HSE National Service Plan (NSP) measures effectiveness through the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),' they added.
'NSP 2024 targets included 75pc of 999 PURPLE calls (life-threatening cardiac or respiratory arrest) should be met within 19 minutes, and 45pc of 999 RED (life-threatening illness or injury, other than cardiac or respiratory arrest) calls should be met within 19 minutes.'
After hearing about Mary and Julia's distressing incident, Wicklow-Wexford TD Brian Brennan broached the broader issues with the ambulance service, saying: 'Firstly, I commend the ambulance staff, paramedics, advanced paramedics, all first responders and those on the front line, but there is a critical issue with the system, and it must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
'The current ambulance service is not fit for purpose in Arklow and the south east. As it stands, Arklow and Gorey have only one operating ambulance each at any given time to serve a population of over 50,000 people.
'If these ambulances are out on call, cover is requested from as far away as Bray and Waterford. Our local ambulances also provide cover outside of their areas, sometimes being called away as far as Meath and Maynooth.
'I have raised this in Leinster House as I believe that this system is absolutely not fit for purpose and has the dedicated front-line staff chasing their tails and is leading to unacceptable waiting times for people in their most vulnerable time of need.'