A GUITARIST WITH The Coronas, Lar Kaye, was ferried to hospital in the back of a garda patrol car as there was no ambulance available to respond after he collapsed at the band’s concert at King John’s Castle in Limerick, last month.
Kaye was attended to by an off-duty paramedic and off-duty nurse, who were both separately attending the concert as punters, it has also emerged.
Efforts by the off-duty first responders were successful in maintaining the guitarist’s airway after he collapsed during the opening of the much anticipated stage show on 29 May, which was to kickstart the city’s bank holiday weekend festivities.
The band is due to replay the concert on 11 July.
When asked for comment, the HSE National Ambulance Service (NAS) said it “regrets that any service user should have a negative experience” but that it “cannot discuss individual case details”.
NAS also said that “during particularly busy periods, such as over bank holiday weekends, lower-acuity calls may wait longer for an ambulance”.
When contacted for comment, the concert promoter, Mick Dolan, said Dolans also had their own first responders and medics at the gig.
However, the incident involving Kaye’s collapse at a concert attended by thousands, has brought to the fore the availability of ambulances in the Limerick region, particularly during bank holiday weekends.
When Kaye collapsed after suffering a suspected seizure, no ambulance was available due to the number of calls logged in the NAS emergency response system at the time.
About an hour and 20 minutes after Kaye’s frightening on-stage collapse, and still with no ambulance available, the musician was transferred from the concert venue in a garda car to University Hospital Limerick, accompanied by the off-duty paramedic who had earlier leapt from the crowd to help.
Sources said the 999/112 call volume “far outweighs” the number of ambulances that are on duty, and that, on any given night in Limerick City, there is a maximum of “three ambulances”.
“Limerick has a population of 140,000. [If] you add in students, holidaymakers – and Limerick paramedics are covering north Tipperary, north Cork – there is a catchment area of 450,000 people,” one source said.
“At nighttime, there are between 11 and 13 ambulances, maximum, on in that region. There are nine stations in the region. Everybody has one ambulance. Limerick has three.
“It depends on the call volume at the time, and the nature of the call. Generally you will get the closest available ambulance, but that available ambulance might be diverted to something more serious depending on what comes in.”
All 999/112 ambulance alerts in the Limerick region and beyond are processed out of Ballyshannon, County Donegal.
NAS said it “works to deliver the highest standard of care for people using NAS services”.
“NAS operates a nationally integrated deployment model (that) dispatches the nearest available ambulance to the most urgent calls, regardless of county boundaries.
“All 999/112 calls received for emergency medical assistance are prioritised using an internationally recognised system that triages calls based on clinical priority, which range from life-threatening cardiac or respiratory arrest to minor illness or injury.
“The National Emergency Operations Centre is the command and coordination hub of the NAS. It is staffed by emergency medical controllers, emergency dispatchers, clinical nurse managers, control supervisors, and control managers.”
Reliable sources within the ambulance service said paramedics are “run ragged” trying to keep up with calls due to inadequate numbers of ambulance crews on the road.
It comes against a backdrop of unrest within the NAS over pay and conditions.
On 11 May, SIPTU and UNITE members working as emergency medical technicians, paramedics, advanced paramedics, specialist paramedics, and paramedic supervisors initiated a work to rule.
They also engaged in a 24-hour work stoppage on 12 May over the HSE’s failure to implement the recommendations of an independent report of updating ambulance workers’ pay scales to reflect changes in their responsibilities and workloads over the past two decades.
A further 72-hour strike action for 26 May last was stood down following constructive discussions with the HSE at the Labour Court.
The HSE said previous proposals to resolve the dispute were rejected by the unions. However, the unions said the previous proposals came with conditions that were unacceptable to their members.
Email enquiries followed up with phone-calls to The Coronas, through their booking company, AMA Music Agency, went unanswered.