Ambulance response times are in a critical condition...

100 life-threatened patients waited hours for help as hospital closures blamed for delays

-  EOGHAN MURPHY

IT has taken an ambulance over two hours to arrive at a life-threatening emergency more than 100 times this year.

According to figures released under FOI, the longest response time was three hours and 16 minutes.

Under HSE targets, an ambulance should arrive at the scene of a life-threatening heart or respiratory arrest within 19 minutes in 75 per cent of cases.

In all other critical cases, that response time should be met in 45 per cent of cases.

But these figures show 1,435 life-threatening calls weren't responded to within an hour between January and May.

A total of 103 had response times of between two and three hours and, in three cases, the patients were waiting over three hours.

The worst three hours and 16.11 minutes - was in Co Leitrim, with the HSE's National Ambulance Service blaming the "distance" for the delay.

The next longest was three hours and 8.29 minutes in Co Mayo.