Athlone-based air ambulance service will cover the entire country

The air ambulance that is to be based at Custume Barracks in Athlone is to serve the entire country, rather than just the midlands and west, as had been anticipated. While no official announcement has been made by Health Minister James Reilly on the service or its location at Custume Barracks, his party colleague Roscommon/South Leitrim Deputy Frank Feighan announced that the service will be located at the army barracks in Athlone. It is now believed that the service is for the entire country, serving from Cork to Donegal, with a flying time of 50 minutes, a move that has been criticised locally. Chairman of the Roscommon Hospital Action Group John McDermott, who has been campaigning for a helicopter service for the midlands and west, said this is a far cry from what the group had been pushing for, while Deputy Denis Naughten said to have the helicopter serve the whole country undermined the ethos of the service. Mr McDermott said while there has been no official announcement as yet, the service is to be for the entire country with support from the Coast Guard when it is available. He said the recruitment process has started for paramedics and advanced paramedics for the service, but no additional funding is to be made available for recruitment, with paramedics moving from elsewhere in the HSE. The Air Corps will fly the helicopter and the advanced paramedics or paramedics on board will be treated as medical passengers. "It's totally a far cry from what we were hoping for," said Mr McDermott. "The aero-medical desk is to co-ordinate it and it hasn't been staffed yet." He said there have been no specifics yet about what type of patients will be carried on the helicopter or the conditions on the helicopter. "It's so vague it's not funny," he said. Mr McDermott added that the Minister had been expected to make an official announcement about the air ambulance service in January, but so far the group had had no contact from him or his office. He explained that an independent report commissioned by the Government in 2004 had pointed out that four air ambulance bases and four air ambulances were required for the country. "With the demographics now there is even more demand since then," he said. "If it was based in Roscommon or Athlone it's 15 minutes to Galway, Sligo or Laois, now it's 50 minutes to Cork or Donegal. The priority was for the west and midlands and then to follow on with the other three. What's being proposed now, even though it's not announced, is that it's for the whole country," he said. Deputy Denis Naughten said his understanding is that the service is for the majority of the country, everything bar the periphery of the country, which he said is not really feasible. He added that the service is not a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS), but a transport service and explained that the whole point is to get a critical patient to a centre of excellence within 90 minutes, but with a 50-minute flying time this was not possible. Deputy Naughten explained that if someone is critical at an accident and an advanced paramedic is in attendance within 20 minutes, by the time they have evaluated the patient and called out the air ambulance from Custume Barracks 30 minutes could have passed and then with 50 minutes flying time the 90-minute turnaround will be reached before the patient is even transferred. "It is not acceptable that it will cover the whole country. It can very effectively cover the midlands," he said. Deputy Naughten said that by giving it responsibility for the whole country it will undermine the whole purpose behind it, which is to tackle the transfer blackspot in the middle of the country. However, he added that while the service is not a HEMS, it is a positive development, but he stressed that it should not be considered as a national service based out of Athlone. "It's not a fully fledged HEM. We have a long way to get there but it's a positive step forward," he said. "It should not be undermined by spreading it far too thinly on the ground. You'll end up with a situation where instead of being transferred by road ambulance you'll be waiting on an air ambulance but you could be transferred quicker by road." He said that, at the very minimum, what is needed is the air ambulance in Custume Barracks with back-up from the Coast Guard units based at Sligo, Shannon and Dublin and that those three, with the one at Custume Barracks, could give a pretty good service to the whole middle of the country. Deputy Naughten added that he understood that the paramedics will be coming in on a rolling three-month basis and will be drawn from a panel for three months at a time.