Cardiac care time dependent on location

WHERE YOU live greatly affects your chances of receiving timely emergency treatment in the event of a heart attack, new figures show.

Barely one in three ambulance callouts to patients suffering from life-threatening cardiac emergencies in the south and west of the country arrive within the target time, according to the figures from the National Ambulance Service.

An ambulance called to treat a person suffering a heart attack is almost twice as likely to arrive within the target time of eight minutes in Leinster and the northern region compared with the south and the west.

The chance of a person suffering a heart attack surviving declines until help arrives.

In Leinster and the northern region, 65 per cent of Echo calls, for patients having a cardiac or respiratory arrest, saw an ambulance arrive within the prescribed eight-minute time. For the southern region, the figure was 39 per cent and for the western region, 36 per cent.

For Delta calls, the classification for other forms of life-threatening situations, just 29 per cent of Leinster/North callouts were dealt with within the target time. The figure for South was 32 per cent while it was 30 per cent in West.

The overall target is for 75 per cent of callouts to result in treatment within eight minutes by ambulance staff or another “first responder” trained to use a defibrillator. An ambulance is then supposed to arrive on the scene within 19 minutes.

As of last June, however, an ambulance arrived on time in Leinster/North in 72 per cent of Echo callouts, below the target. South region exceed the target at 84 per cent while in West the figure was 58 per cent.

The Health Service Executive says response times improved in 10 out of 12 months last year after an action plan was developed to tackle the problem. However, with no additional resources available this year, meeting the agreed targets will be difficult, it says.

The use of ambulances to transfer patients between hospitals continues to be one of the most significant impediments to improving response times, it says.

Nationally, just over half of Echo calls, and 27 per cent of Delta calls, are responded to within eight minutes. An ambulance arrives on the scene within the 19-minute target in 70 per cent of Echo calls and 67 per cent of Delta calls.

The Irish Fire and Emergency Services Association claimed yesterday that emergency calls were being more strenuously vetted as a way of saving money. The association said there was growing evidence that a more rigid interpretation of “call vetting” was denying basic fire and rescue services to local communities.