The Irish Air Corps recently revealed that it staged 310 successful Air Ambulance missions in 2018 with 30 of those missions taking place in Co. Roscommon.
Mayo was the county with most operations with 49 incidents requiring the ambulance taking critically ill patients to hospital. Second was Galway with 36 missions and figures from the Department of Defence show that Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Clare and Tipperary accounted for 53% of the overall missions completed in 2018.
The dedicated Air Corps Augusta Westland 139 helicopter if based at Custume Barracks in Athlone.
Independent TD Denis Naughten has said he will fight for expansion of the service this year.
“As part of the commitments which I received on the formation of this Government, during 2019 we will see the expansion of this air ambulance service, with a second air ambulance in the southern part of Ireland.
“The second air ambulance will take pressure off the service based in Athlone and allow it to respond to note emergencies throughout the west of Ireland”.
“There is no doubt that there are local people alive today, because they have had access to this vital air ambulance service and I intend to continue to fight for an expansion of this service,” he said.
Fine Gael Senator Frank Feighan said the service, combined with a team of advanced paramedics and the ground ambulance service “has and continues to save countless lives in this region”.
“Since the commencement of the EAS Service in June 2012, the Air Corps has completed more than 2,300 missions throughout the country. The Air Corps also provided 44 inter-hospital Air Ambulance service support in response to medical emergencies,” he said.
