As fundraising begins to launch new charity Irish Air Ambulance, some argue the service should be State funded, writes Lorna Siggins
Derek Rowe lost a very close friend in a road incident in the south-west four years ago. "It happened between Tralee and Killarney, Co Kerry, and Frank was taken to Dublin by ambulance," he recalls.
Frank Clarke, a governor of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and prominent member of the woodturners' guilds in Ireland and Britain, never made it home from Dublin. "The journey to hospital by road from down here was just too much," Rowe says. "And so his death has driven me to this."
"This" is Rowe's plan for a dedicated air ambulance service, which has been registered as a Co Kerry-based charity with a board of trustees including MEP Kathy Sinnott, Mayor of Kerry Michael Healy Rae and two fellow councillors, retired garda Tom Moriarty, businessmen Edward Kelliher and Sean Rush and lecturer Pat McCarthy.
The charity has set a target of early summer 2008 for initiation of the service which would become part of a national network, Rowe says. It would be equipped with both gear and medical personnel to fly to traffic incidents and other "major trauma" situations, complementing the ground-based ambulance service - but with the ability to travel at three times land-ambulance speed.
Fundraising for a start-up figure of €500,000 has begun, and Irish Air Ambulance estimates annual operating costs at €1.2 million.
Rowe believes that the project could qualify for EU rural development grant aid and should be modelled on air ambulance services in Britain.
"This is not to knock the work of our ambulance staff, who do a fantastic job," Rowe stresses.
"I glory in what they do. I also think that we need to keep our ambulances in our areas, rather than sending them on long journeys through increasing traffic congestion to specialist hospitals."
In a separate initiative, also announced this month, a private air ambulance service based at Galway Airport aims to make its first flights by next March. HeliMed Ireland is a partnership between Executive Helicopters and the Blackrock Ambulance Service. Like Irish Air Ambulance, it says it will operate during daylight hours only until hospitals have helipads fitted for landing lights for night-time flying.
Unlike Irish Air Ambulance, it will be for private patients only, mainly for hospital transfer, but says that it will be available for hire by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The publicity surrounding both projects highlight claims that Ireland is alone in Europe in not having such a service. However, that's a claim that the Defence Forces takes issue with. The Air Corps may have been withdrawn from air/sea search and rescue, but its air ambulance role is now part of a formal service level agreement (SLA) between the Departments of Health and Defence.
Air ambulance has been well established for 40 years, according to Air Corps, which says its staff undertake this with a "sense of duty and pride".
It allows for day and night patient transfer, organ delivery, neo-natal and international patient transfer, and 83 such missions were completed this year to date - with a total of 330 since 2004.
Back in February 1964, when the first recorded air ambulance flight here was carried out by one of the former Alouette helicopter fleet, there was little paperwork or bureaucracy. The Alouette III 196 had to be fitted with snow skis to take a patient from Wexford up to Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, for specialist treatment.
The Air Corps stood down its Alouette fleet this autumn, but has a new Eurocopter EC 135 and a new Agusta-Westland AW139 fitted for air ambulance duties. One is on standby at Baldonnel, west Dublin, 365 days a year, day and night, and the Agusta-Westland completed its first air ambulance mission on October 11th last.
What the Air Corps doesn't do - as yet, under its agreement - is fly to the scene of land-based incidents. Former Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley has campaigned for many years for such a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS), and this resulted in publication of a cross-border consultancy study for the Departments of Health here and in the North in April, 2004.
It found that inter-hospital transfer would be the "most appropriate" in an all-island context, and noted that where HEMS operated, they were mainly during daylight hours - whereas most road traffic collisions and incidents occur at night. It also found that inappropriate tasking of helicopters could be an issue for primary response HEMS.
The Department of Health says that the need for further investment in ground ambulances is a priority, and that it has agreements with the Air Corps and Irish Coast Guard on inter-hospital transfer.
However, it does say that there has been a "renewal of interest" recently in the "concept" of HEMS, both north and south of the border, and "both health departments are currently keeping their respective policy positions under review".
Cowley, now back working as a GP, believes that HEMS must be State-funded. "I applaud the work of the people setting up this new charity, but we have to have Government commitment to ensure that it is maintained and is open to all," he says.
HEMS units operating full State support in Britain have run into financial difficulties, Cowley points out.
Just recently, more than 6,000 people in Leicestershire signed a petition demanding information on the future of their air ambulance, when it was reported that the service based at East Midlands airport was moving to the West Midlands because of funding issues.