Tough year ahead for Ambulance Service

The Guernsey Ambulance and Rescue Service say it's going to be a difficult twelve months to find funding. The service receives a grant from the States each year but it only covers 70 per cent of what it needs. The crew have to rely on charitable donations to fund important operations like paramedics, cliff rescue and the marine ambulance the Flying Christine. Chief Officer Jon Beausire says the team work hard to raise the funds.

From Channel online


Should the States pay more or subsidise the Ambulance Service? Or should we all pay more and have compulsory subscriptions? What do you think?


.

Maybe they should stop wasting money?

How do they waste money Spirit? What do you know?






.

Flying Christine?

Spirit, what if you were in Sark and had an unfortunate accident and needed to be transported in the equivalent of an ambulance back to Guernsey? With a paramedic and all of the drugs and treatment needed to give you a calm transfer? Without the Flying Christine the alternatives would be the back of an open fishing boat or whatever was available!!! Not really a pleasant thought..... IMO of course!!

I may have a different view, but I am happy that they have such an excellent service (and no.... I have no connections what-so-ever with them! LOL) and am content to pay the annual subscription along with a lot of other people.

Personally, I think that all of the staff at the Ambulance Service provide a fantastic service that is second to none. My question was whether they should receive more funding from the States (ie the tax payer) or not?




.

What gets me wondering is how the rest of the world copes. With 11,000 inhabited islands in the world, we are the only one with a marine ambulance.

How did we cope when the Flying Christine was out of action after hitting the rocks? Maybe there were problems, even deaths, but I never heard of any.

I don't know how much it costs to run it, but it must be 100s of 1000s per year.

I understand your point Spirit, but I still personally feel that we get an excellent service and the peace of mind of such excellent facilities certainly comforts me. I am not at sea everyday or transferring to outer Islands, or resident on one for that matter.... but if I was I would feel greatly comforted by such an excellent facility being available should I need it.

There are other examples of marine ambulance's, here is one in Ireland at the following: ARTICLE




.

The Ireland example isn't a marine ambulance vehicle, it is a paramedic team which hitches a ride with the coastguard, air-sea rescue etc.

With you 100% Spirit.It all comes back to "gold-plated services".Of the few dealings I've had with them their service has been excellent but I wonder if their capabilities and equipment are a bit over engineered? Before we consider more in the way of States(ie us taxpayers)assistance I think they should consider charging in instances where stupid behavior has required their help.

Is that not more the Lifeboat Bug?






.

I suppose if we are looking at the finances how many times per year is the Christine used (a) and what is the upkeep cost (b), when one is divided into the other is it a viable service. Certainly a good service but viable/necessary is another question. Didn't the Barclays offer their Helicpter to do emergency airlifts. How about a medic team using a chartered boat where necessary, that may be a cheaper option.
There are also other ways to get funds in. I once approached them to get a membership for an event. So if the ambo' was used for a competitor during the event, and most competitors were UK/Euro' based the event membership would cover the ambo' use as opposed to the competitor. The answer was no. This seemed odd to me cause they would have had a subscription for one event whether we used them or not. We did three events per year.