Sick Dunboyne toddler left waiting two hours for ambulance

A Dunboyne dad whose toddler son was left waiting two hours for an ambulance to take him to hospital has vowed to raise vital funds to help St John's Ambulance to pay tribute to the vital work paramedics carry out.

Panic set in for Alan and Eva Clarke when their two and a half year old son Jax became unwell with Croup, a childhood condition that affects the windpipe and the airways to the lungs but the frantic parents were forced to wait two hours for the nearest ambulance 140km away in Monaghan to arrive.

The dad of two set up the fundraiser after experiencing first hand how much pressure the national ambulance service has come under due to a lack of capacity, resources and the changes to move control centres to a more centralised system and how this has increased pressure for the paramedics. Speaking about the incident, he said:

“My wife and I recently had to call for an ambulance for our two year old son which took two hours to arrive. While talking to the paramedics we could hear the frustration from them of how overwhelmed they currently are. This ambulance was dispatched from Monaghan with us living in Dunboyne Co. Meath.

"We were actually talking to them on the phone while we were waiting and they were keeping us up to date but it's still very frustrating that a two and a half year old would have to wait two hours to get to a hospital and then to find out the nearest one is coming from Monaghan.

"The Dunboyne couple also parents to Kyle (1) had just arrived back from spending the night in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda where the toddler was sent the day before.

"We were discharged from Drogheda about 2pm and we went home and put him down to bed about 7pm," explains Alan.

"We could really hear it in his voice and when he woke up it was really flairing again, Eva rang Drogheda and they said to come straight back in and we were advised to ring an Ambulance, that it would be quicker but the two hour wait didn't make that efficiency happen.

"The previous day when he initially became ill we rang the doctor on call and because it was such a panic we ended up in Navan Hospital rather than the clinic in the town and they don't take children there but he was so bad that took him in. Once he had settled down and we were getting the ambulance over to Drogheda that's when I was talking to the paramedics and they were venting their frustration at the current crisis in the service.

"We were told before we left Drogheda Hospital that day that if he deteriorated to come in within the hour, and it was bang on an hour at that stage where the airwaves were completely shut and it was so serious the day before they rushed him into the hospital took him in despite not having a paediatric unit and that's still on your mind.

"I rang after about 40 minutes and they explained that it was a busy night, we were toying with the idea of cancelling and driving into Temple Street but the fact that Drogheda had our chart and that we had been there the night before we thought it was best to wait.

"On night one they gave him a couple of doses of adrenaline to open up the airwaves and he got another dose on day two, he was fine afterwards but it was a frightening experience.

"It's not the first time, the national ambulance service has touched the lives of Alan's family. A number of years ago, it was nearly all over for his father Gary who suffered a cardiac arrest but thanks to people at the scene and the paramedics, his life was saved as Alan explains:

"Eight or nine years ago my father was in the pub and he dropped and the ambulance was there within 20 minutes but lucky enough there were couple of guys working on him doing CPR at the time, that was in the thought process thinking as well, what if that was another night where the resources were more strained.

"He was actually pronounced dead at one stage, they were taking all of the equipment off and the nurse actually saw a trickle of blood and they hooked him back up and got the heart going again.

"He was an induced coma for about a week after and eventually they got the defibrillator in, between his friend, the bar man and the paramedics his life was saved."

To make a donation search "St John Ambulance" on GoFundMe.