Surgeon who treated Grenfell fire victims says Ireland 'decades behind' in coping with similar tragedy
A leading Irish trauma surgeon says our health system would not cope with a large-scale terrorist attack or tragedy.
Morgan McMonagle treated patients following recent attacks in London and the Grenfell fire disaster in which at least 79 people died.
He says Ireland is lagging decades behind when it comes to major incidents as we still do not have a Level One trauma centre.
Mr McMonagle says we have the highly trained staff, but not the system to co-ordinate them in an emergency.
He said: "My biggest fear is that we are decades behind. I would estimate that if you were to open a trauma centre in Dublin tomorrow, it would take about five years to show major, major improvement.
"So how would we respond? I think every individual responds to the best of their ability, but do we have the well-coordinated system to give the best results? I would be anxious that we do not."
