The father of a six-year-old boy with type 1 diabetes has voiced concerns about emergency care provision in the Omagh district after his son was forced to wait around four hours to receive vital medication.

Shortly after midnight last Wednesday morning, it was discovered that the young boy’s blood sugar levels were dangerously low.

Doctors at the Royal Hospital in Belfast, where the boy is normally treated, decided it was too perilous for him to make the long journey up the M1 and told his father to seek immediate medical attention from the closest hospital.

The Omagh man, who wishes to remain anonymous, brought his son to the local Urgent Care and Treatment Centre (UCTC), but there was no doctor cover available and nursing staff were not permitted to provide the crucial dextrose infusion drip required to increase the boy’s blood sugar levels.

They then had to wait 40 minutes for an ambulance to travel from Enniskillen to bring the boy to the Erne Hospital, a journey which took over half an hour, and a further 90 minutes for him to be properly assessed after his arrival.

Finally, the boy received the dextrose drip line he required four hours after the ordeal began. His father pointed out that his son would have been treated much quicker if he had travelled to the Royal in the first place – a journey doctors advised him against due to the seriousness of the situation.

He said, “From entering the UCTC in Omagh, waiting for an ambulance and then travelling to the Erne took almost an hour and a half in total. Yet this was still 30 minutes longer than the journey to Belfast we were warned against taking because it was deemed too dangerous by doctors as my son needed medical assistance immediately.”

Read full article: The Ulster Herald.