Ambulance delays at Mayo hospital highlighted

AN ambulance waited five hours and 50 minutes to discharge a Covid positive patient into Mayo University Hospital, a local authority meeting was told today.

Another ambulance experienced a delay of four-and-a-half hours at the facility.

Councillor Michael Kilcoyne hit out at the lack of resources that have been invested in the county's health services when the Covid crisis came up for discussion at a Castlebar Municipal District meeting.

He said the HSE had opened a new unit at the hospital, which has six bays, and phased out a unit which had 15 bays.

Something needs to be done, he said. “Frontline workers are stretched to the limit, stressed to their eyes.

“And in relation to ambulance people, they haven't even been offered the injection and yet some have to sit in the back of an ambulance for five and six hours with a Covid positive patient. It's much more serious than people just mixing.

“The situation at Mayo University Hospital is very serious and I'm appalled that not one of our four TDs is prepared to lead a campaign on it.”

Councillor Al McDonnell commented on the 'extraordinary disclosure' on Tuesday evening of 466 positive Covid cases in Mayo in the previous 24 hours.

He proposed they resolve as a local authority that our citizens and friends would not make direct contact with anyone outside their household except when absolutely necessary, and that the council executive would make a public statement to that effect.

Councillor Donna Sheridan agreed the figures are worrying, with frontline workers doing everything they can, and she asked that people would cut their contacts.