Northern Ireland politician backs experts’ call for HEMS doctors

Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice party and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, has welcomed the intervention of a number of medical experts who have called on the province’s health minister to ensure that Air Ambulance Northern Ireland carries doctors on board when it launches in 2017.

Allister commented: “Having been involved in the campaign for an air ambulance service for Northern Ireland before it was fashionable, I greatly welcome this intervention by world experts in the provision of a helicopter emergency medical service. The gravity of the concerns about this issue is reflected in the fact that leaders in their field from Australia, Norway, England, Scotland, Slovenia, France, Wales, Austria, Hungary and the US have spoken out.” He continued: “Off the back of my question to the health minister which asked if the service in Northern Ireland would be doctor led and staffed, they have expressed concerns that the staffing model may be paramedic rather than doctor led. The letter highlights that this would leave Northern Ireland in a uniquely short-changed position in a UK context as all other UK air ambulances are physician-staffed or moving towards that model.”

It is particularly noteworthy, said Allister, that the experts stated in their recent letter to Michelle O’Neill of the Northern Ireland Executive: “We fear the Service will not be capable of providing the best life-saving care possible to the people of Northern Ireland from the outset if a doctor is not onboard the helicopter. Placing a combative, agitated, head injured or bleeding patient in a helicopter without a general anaesthetic is unsafe, both to the patient and the crew. The ‘golden hour’ is then lost as these patients will have to be transported on sometimes lengthy journeys by road to the trauma centre. Sedating head injured patients without a general anaesthetic is a ‘solution’ from the 1970s and has been shown to cause harm. This is what would happen without a doctor onboard.”

Allister call on the minister to take notice of what he called a ‘highly unusual intervention’, saying: “It is imperative that the necessary funding is discovered for this vital service.”

Read the full letter here.