We Need Helicopters

The newsletter of the NHS Consultants' Association just came out today. In it was an article by Evan Lloyd, who is a Consultant Anaesthetist(hurray, spelt it right) in Edinburgh. He talked about the principles that were used in treating the wounded in Korea by American teams, where the injured were evacuated by helicopter with on board paramedics.

Minor injuries were treated on site, major ones which could wait were sent on, while others were stabilised and then sent to the major unit. He comments,
'If this was found to be the best management system when helicopter transport could be virtually guaranteed, how much more important is it for land based travel in an ambulance? For example, though the Lanarkshire health board state that the ambulance transit time between Monklands and Wishaw is only 20 minutes, ambulance drivers state that this is the best possible time, and that in rush hours it could be twice or three times as long.'
He continues,
'On purely medical grounds it would surely be better to maintain Monklands A&E in the middle of an area which has one of the highest rates of MI (heart attack) in the world. It is obviously unfair on ambulance paramedics and unsafe for severely ill patients whether trauma or medical, for the medical responsibility for a case during long transport times,to be left to a paramedic.' Give this man a medal for speaking out.

Now do you think that NHS Lanarkshire will a) reprieve the hospital; b)provide helicopters to Wishaw;or c)run a Wee Happy Bus service for heart attack victims, to Wishaw? We'll c..