Monday, November 30, 2009
** No helicopter air ambulance for Saskatchewan, health minister says
** Scottish Ambulance Service introduces palliative care ambulance service
CANADA NEWS
** Saskatchewan’s plan to buy a helicopter air ambulance won’t likely come off after all. That is the word from CBC (November 27) which said the expense of the undertaking was deemed prohibitive. According to the news service, the chopper’s purchase would have run government coffers some $42 million, while annual operating costs would have sat around $9 million. Health Minister Don McMorris said tough economic times have pushed the project fairly low on the to-do list. Ground ambulance improvements will now become the priority.
UNITED KINGDOM NEWS
** In an effort to help terminally ill cancer patients, the Scottish Ambulance Service in Tayside is introducing a dedicated EMS unit for individuals in palliative care. That is the word from the Perthshire Advertiser (Alison Lowson/November 27) which said the initiative is being funded by a 50,000 pound donation from the NHS Tayside Board Endowment Fund. According to the newspaper, the service is working on the program alongside the Marie Curie Cancer Care Delivering Choices Program. Designed to allow terminal patients the opportunity to die at home, the approach centres around a palliative care EMS unit readily transporting the individual following urgent immediate discharge requests. NHS Tayside non-executive director Elizabeth Forsyth said the idea is to allow the dying to be with their families when death comes.
