Update: Man in critical condition after air ambulance called to Ipswich address

4 comments

• This so-called "incident" sounds like chaos and, as ever, its the tax-payer who ends up covering the huge cost of a needless helicopter "chopper" flying around and landing. The story would be more informative if it probed into how or why there were different and conflicting responses to what is effectively a simple taxi job to pick up a suspected casualty and, if necessary, take him to hospital.

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  bigger niche

  Sunday, October 14, 2012

• Coming from a line of current and past 999 workers who have all seen those "bad things" I am not trying to criticise the actual staff on the ground. Yes, a paramedic was first on the scene but the fact that the air ambulance needed to land on Bishops Hill indicates to me that consideration was being given to using that to transport the patient rather than a land vehicle, which was not available. The delays complained of, seem to be the apparent lack of land vehicles to convey patients to hospital, after the arrival of a fast response paramedic.(The golden hour) Is this not what the paramedic unions are trying to get addressed by their employers?

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  The original Victor Meldrew

  Wednesday, October 10, 2012

• I think if you unravel the confusion it reads that...the air ambulance was sent but was stood down because the land crews had it covered and were already en-route to the hospital with the patient by time the air ambulance arrived (looking at the difference in arrival times of the first Paramedic on scene and the air ambulance being nearly 30 minutes apart). I would imagine the Air Ambulance gets called automatically on all jobs which sound serious and not just because there were no other vehicles available. I don't think there is any mention of a lack of land vehicles. Baring in mind it takes approx only 15 minutes for the air ambulance to reach anywhere within the East of England it would suggest the arrival of the Air Ambulance would have been prior to the land crews had their activation been due to lack of land crews availability. I think it's a shame that stories like this, where ambulance staff successfully* deal with stressful and life threatening emergencies, only hit the news because a helicopter is involved and in this instance I don’t even think they saw the patient; are readers really this naive? When actually I'm sure horrible events like this occur every day without the helicopters presence, where the land staff manage the situation and yet there is very little coverage of that. Is a helicopter the only phenomenon which makes a medical emergency story ‘worthwhile’? Of course not, moaning about ambulances not being on time makes the news too. Does the great number of ‘regular’ callers (who must alone cost tens of thousands of pounds each, per year to attendtreat if an ambulance cost at least £250 a time and they call once a week that equals £13,000 for just one person) or those who dial 999 out of convenience rather than necessity (therefore using up ambulances which could be better deployed) ever hit the news? Surely they are the reason for the lack of ambulances? *I use the word ‘successfully’ because if the patient was in cardiac arrest and is now in critical care it is extremely likely the patient is no longer in cardiac arrest and recovery from cardiac arrest out of hospital is extremely rare, therefore the ambulance crews must have done something right. I wish the patient all the best in their speedy recovery and think those members of the public, who are so quick to judge, take a look at the facts before demanding ‘why wasn’t the ambulance there quicker’. I am no expert, the facts and figures are readily available on the internet. If you take the time to make an informed decision, rather than just taking the words of a news paper as fact, then things may become clearer. I think there are two clear points here: 1) We should consider all the great work carried out by all of our emergency services, not just jobs which involve helicopters or ‘Gucci’ items. Sadly I’m sure a person with a broken finger in a remote place away from roads who had an air ambulance attend would receive more news coverage than say someone who had a cardiac arrest in Ipswich and was revived by Paramedics. 2) All of our emergency services work very hard every day and night, 365 days of the year, dealing with scenes which luckily most of us will never have to see; from dead children to aggressive and violent thugs, let us remember that these pubic services staff are people too and just because its their job doesn’t mean these horrific scenes are easy for them to deal with. Remember this before you criticise.

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  fair_view_point

  Tuesday, October 9, 2012

• Are we saying there were no land ambulance vehicles available when the call was made? I appreciate one did eventually take over.

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  The original Victor Meldrew

  Tuesday, October 9, 2012