Today's Echo delivers a hard-hitting message to Welsh Health Minister Brian Gibbons about the state of our ambulance service.
Week after week we have been featuring ambulance horror stories - from police having to take patients to hospitals, taxis being used as makeshift 999 vehicles, and yesterday, fire crews having to take a man to hospital in their fire engine.
Today we draw the comparison with a third world country - and we take no delight in doing that.
I don't think that is taking it too far.
There seems to be a complacency in the Assembly approach to rectifying this problem.
What will it take to wake Cardiff Bay up to this problem? Do we really have to wait for some disaster until we realise the gravity of this situation - and act on it?
Today the Echo questions the role of our health minister and asks why he is not acting in a more decisive way on this issue.
In tomorrow's paper I hope to be able to publish a full interview with Mr Gibbons when he will tell our readers why situations like that seen in Maesteg happen, why a man died of a heart attack despite eight calls to 999 and why we are having to use police cars and taxis in our capital city to ferry patients to hospital.
I say 'I hope to publish' as I am not sure at this stage whether Mr Gibbons will make time to assure our readers.
This is a life and death issue which affects each and every one of us.
You can have your say on this issue on our new messageboard at http://icwales.co.uk/echoforum or if you have a private opinion leave your comment on this blog.
The Echo does not want to continue reporting about our readers suffering from such a shambolic service and we intend to keep shouting about it until we have the service we deserve.
Simon W wrote...
I am pleased the Editor of the Echo knows who our Health Minister is. Perhaps you could inform the rest of your staff before you publish letters like this one!
(part extract of letter published on Tuesday 20th February)
Straight to the point
Has Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt seen the extensive tented area which surrounded the University Hospital of Wales forecourt and mobile garage for the unusable ambulances that carry emergency cases awaiting entry into A&E?
Ray Irwin
Caldy Road, Llandaff North, Cardiff
It is still the problem that many people do not understand what our Assembly is responsible for and publishing letters like this will not help
RW: Thanks Simon. It points to an issue which is a Wales-wide one. The public is largely confused about governmental roles and despite the pages after pages that we publish on a daily basis the message sometimes does not sink in.
Posted by: Simon W | February 21, 2007 1:27 PM