Inside insane 999 calls threatening lives as public use ambulance as ‘free taxi’

HUNDREDS of lives are being put at risk because people are calling 999 for toothaches, sore eyes, blood in their mouth and cuts on their legs, we can reveal today.

On average, only one out of nine patients who ring for an ambulance are a genuine emergency and in danger of dying, a paramedic whistleblower has revealed.

The majority of the rest are for minor injuries and the public are using the National Ambulance Service as “a free taxi service” to hospital accident and emergency departments nationwide, the paramedic claimed.

The scandal is putting huge pressure on crews and hospital staff.

At one stage recently, 13 ambulances were tied up outside a hospital because of an influx of calls and there were no beds or trolleys available.

It is understood very few of these calls were life threatening incidents.

The paramedic told how last week alone crews were tied up for three to four hours after:

• A man dialled an ambulance and insisted on being brought to hospital after finding blood in his mouth
• Another individual demanded to be brought to hospital because he had a tooth ache and ordered a takeaway while crew members waited with him to be assessed by hospital staff.
• A woman who had a sore eye dialled 999 and had to be driven to A&E when she was told a specific cream would fix her issue.
• A woman rang an ambulance after a relative fell and cut their knee and demanded they be brought in to be checked up after paramedics told her the child was fine, it was just a cut.

The whistleblower revealed: “The amount of stupid calls we are getting is insane. We end up going to hospital with a very minor case and have to stay with the so-called ‘sick’ patient until they are triaged, which can take two to three hours at a minimum.

“We end up responding to three calls on a shift instead of eight.

“This is why people who are genuinely ill are often left waiting two to three hours for an ambulance and could be dead by the time we arrive.

“What is happening at the moment is pure madness.

“We paramedics are not just ambulance drivers, we are very highly trained medics. We should be allowed to not only assess and treat patients but to discharge them if we think there is no danger to them.

“Under the current protocols of the National Ambulance Service we are not allowed to tell people ‘you’re fine, and if you want to go to hospital you have to make your own way’.

“Instead, if patients insist that they want to be brought to A&E, we have to bring them.

“That means we are off the grid and even if people are seriously injured in a road traffic accident and we are only five minutes away, we can’t divert and help them.

“The whole system is crackers and lives are being put at risk every day by the scale of these non-emergency calls.

“Sometimes we can’t get to people who have serious accidents, heart attacks and strokes on time because we are tied up looking after someone who cut their mouth.”

‘PEOPLE HAVE A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT’

The other big issues are calls to nursing homes at night because doctors on call won’t go out to see them.

The whistleblower said: “Dialling 999 at night for a woman who has a sick stomach and asking us to take her out of her comfortable bed to bring her into an A&E warzone is criminal.

“It just should not happen. The doctors on call just can’t be bothered to treat them.

“The doctors in general also need to cop on. We had a woman recently who was feeling unwell. Her GP told to go home, pack and bag and then call 999.

“One of her relatives should have driven her to hospital if she wanted to go, there was no need for her to ring for an ambulance.

“Twenty years ago none of this would happen. People would only dial 999 in a genuine emergency.

“Now people have a sense of entitlement. They think if they go to A&E in an ambulance they will be treated quicker but it is just not true.

BANNED FROM ON-THE-SPOT DECISIONS

“There is a triage system in place in all the acute hospitals and you will be treated accordingly depending on how sick you are.

“The problem we have is we have to stay with these people until they are triaged when we know there is little or nothing wrong with them.

“The bottom line is, if paramedics could discharge patients when they respond to a call it would free up ambulances everywhere and ultimately save lives.

“We have plenty of staff now in the National Ambulance Service so it can no longer be used as an excuse for bad response times.

“The biggest issue is we are banned from making on the spot decisions to crack down on non essential 999 calls.”

Last year a staggering 1,108 people died while waiting for an ambulance to arrive at the scene.

There is one control centre for the whole country, which is based in Tallaght, south Dublin.

Ambulance crews go to work and have no idea what part of the country they are going to end up in.

STAGGERING NUMBER OF LIVES LOST

Earlier this month the Independent Tipperary TD Michael Lowry told the Dail: “During the last eight years the number of people who died before an ambulance reached a location increased by an alarming 70 per cent.

“In one case it took three hours and 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived for a critically ill patient.

“The Ambulance Service is in a state of disarray. The centralised call out system has failed.”

Deputy Lowry demanded a return to regional 999 control centres.

Last night the HSE in a statement said: “The National Ambulance Service operates a dynamic model of ambulance deployment from 110 locations around the country by over 2,300 staff members.

“This is in line with international best practice and allows the National Ambulance Service to prioritise resource allocation to the highest acuity calls that require an immediate emergency response. 

“Dynamic deployment also allows the National Ambulance Service to categorise non-serious or nor non-life threatening calls, and to provide a resource appropriate to the patients ‘clinical need.”