Sinn Fein is expressing outrage at an incident in Donegal last week during which a mother had to drive her unconscious child to hospital while a paramedic worked on her in the back of the family car. 

An ambulance was called out by the mother but it was only staff by one paramedic because another had phoned-in sick. 

The child has recovered after receiving the necessary hospital treatment. 

Donegal South-West TD Pearse Doherty says his office was told of this incident to bring it to the attention of the public.

Mr. Doherty says he has confirmed the incident with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and claims this is not an isolated incident.

Calls for back-up ignored

Deputy Doherty told Lunchtime here on Newstalk the paramedic was unable to do his job because of cutbacks. 

"He called for back-up, the next ambulance was 45 minutes away" he said.

"He asked that paramedics who lived in the vicinity would come to his assistance - and that call was refused".

"So basically the advanced paramedic had to make a clinical decision, and he asked the mother to drive the unconscious child in her own car to the hospital while the paramedic sat in the back seat with the unconscious child and worked on him".

"Despite the fact that there was a fully furnished and equipped ambulance sitting at the house - but cutbacks wouldn't allow a driver to actually drive that to the hospital" he added.

He believes that if one paramedic calls in sick a second replacement should have been called in to cover.