Private ambulance spend by LUH heavily criticised

It’s been revealed that Letterkenny University Hospital spent €3.6 million on private ambulances between 2011 and last year.
The figure has been heavily criticised by Donegal Deputy Pearse Doherty who has branded the situation has outrageous.
In a statement, Deputy Doherty has claimed that spending this amount on private ambulances does not result in value for money.
He believes that the money should instead have been spent purchasing and staffing new ambulances.
Deputy Doherty continued that ambulance services have suffered from years of cuts, underinvestment, and privatisation – with over €31 million being spent on private ambulances across the state by the HSE since 2011.
He said that the huge spend on hiring private ambulance services does not make sense nor does it represent value for the tax payer.
Concluding, Deputy Doherty urged both the government and the HSE need to have publicly owned stock of ambulances instead of putting money into the pockets of private companies.