Former ambulance driver Joe Haughey worked as an ambulance driver for a couple of months last year working at the southern trust. When asked on how did you find the job, Joe said “he found the job on the health section of the job website, got an interview done and successfully passed the interview and got the job”. What the mainstream media have reported year in and year out about reports about the hospital waiting times being shockingly high, not enough people getting hospital beds and patients waiting in the back of an ambulance driver for hours on end. what you see in the news does happen in real life. According to NI direct, the average waiting time in the emergency department in Mater hospital is 45 minutes, whilst the average waiting in the emergency department in Craigavon Area Hospital is 265 minutes.
The comparison between the waiting in two different trusts is staggering and raises the questions on why money hasn’t been invested in Craigavon yet money has been invested in Mater. Another report that was reported by the BBC earlier this year that a man waited more than nine hours for an ambulance in mid-December. The man’s condition got worse and died before paramedics arrived. This just shows that there are staff shortages for nurses, doctors, and ambulance drivers. People have been frustrated and angry for years and years that governments in Britain and especially here in Northern Ireland haven’t invested money in getting additional staffs, better conditions in hospital and get more beds to get rid of the massive waiting lists. Whether the public like it or not, the anger will continue for years to come whenever governments seems to care about themselves rather in the interest of the public.
