A few years ago my wife was in hospital in our local hospital. Just outside of the window where she was looked after was a helipad. At least once a day a chopper would fly in, and the emergency team were waiting to give the best possible treatment to the person brought in. My question is simple. Time can be of an essence to a patient with life threatening injuries. Is it right that the air ambulance service that operates in the UK is only there because of charity? Up and down the country there are regions trying to support this service, many saying that they need to find millions of pounds every year to just keep in the air. Should the government take this service on as a vital part of the NHS?
How much should people at large be asked to pay for this service as it doesn't come free? They said on a news item I saw this evening that one in fourteen of the population are waiting for medical treatment due in part to a lack of money. Just how much extra would people pay to provide better services?
The answer to this is obviously yes. How it could be financed is another matter. Suggestions could include scrapping Trident, or paying for it by raising taxes eg. introducing a finance transactions tax (Tobin Tax) - or possibly introducing a special tax on meat consumption, which could be necessary for environmental reasons as well.
The trouble with general taxation is that it tends to disappear into the funds used for everything else. We have seen how money that is supposed to be ring fenced suddenly has been used for something associated with the original cause, but not what it was intended for. My suggestion would be that it is added to the council tax bills as a separate item. County Council, District Council, Parish Council, Police Authority and an additional sum for the air ambulance. This is the nearest form of taxation to people and if they knew it was being payed to the existing organizations that run the service, how many would object? I would rather it be run by the existing charities who are very experienced in this work, rather than get central government with a huge number of civil servants involved.
They are indeed theo. My friend in Dorset is a supporter and tells me that the service staggers on constantly short of cash. He spends a large part of each summer towing a lifeboat to showgrounds and rattling a tin for contributions.
It's a question of equitable taxation. Local taxes are not equitable. Charitable donation is not equitable. The one and only way to raise money by government or local government is proportionately by ability to pay. Is it fair that rural places should pay more per capita for this type of service? We work out how many we need and we pay for them from the nation's income tax. Same as lifeboats.
Local taxes may be ok. for areas of high tourism which can introduce, or increase, eco-tax or tourist tax added to hotel bookings etc. This would certainly be part of the funding for mountain rescue in the Alps.
In pretty exceptional cases, I could agree. Still thinking on that one. But part of me is thinking, "The country has mountains, not just that region, therefore it is the country's responsibility to provide, not just the region." However, it's not really possible to tax the mountain use other than via hotels, I suppose, and the use of mountain rescue is probably mainly by those visiting. So, maybe OK there. Half a House Point, Cologne.
In France, stay in a hotel or campsite and you will pay a local tax towards use of that areas services. Every town can set their own rate, usually around €1 per night per person. Although it gets called a tourist tax it is charged on all, including those who are away on business. No tax will be fair on all. Street lights are paid for by those living in a country village, even if they are too old or frail to go out at night to use the service.
Scotland has two air ambulance services - the Air Ambulance Division of the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), which is fully funded by the Scottish Government, as are the medical staff it works in conjunction with from the Emergency Medical Retrieval Service. The second, the smaller SCAA based in Perth, is resource-funded via charitable donations - but uses SAS paramedics & flight staff as far as I'm aware. The Royal Flying Doctor Service in Australia - which I've had occasion to use thanks to a snake bite - relies on community support for funding, but as it's such a long standing and well-regarded vital resource for outlying communities, it has little trouble raising the funds it requires to operate.
In NZ there is compulsory insurance based on a non liability law so it is not possible to sue people if you have an accident, except in exceptional circumstances. Part of the road tax pays this insurance, which in turn pays for some of the air ambulances service. The rest of the cost comes from charitable donations. I was surprised to see that photographs of my rescue from a hillside cliff being used in advertising campaigns for donations to the service. The service in my area is sponsored by a bank so is known as the 'Westpac rescue helicopter'. So for accidents the cost comes from government insurance but for other emergencies, such as a heart attack, say, the costs are paid from charitable donations.
Snake bites? Cliff rescues? Interesting how many lives involve the occasional dice with death....pulled half-drowned from the sea as a boy in my case. Life hangs by a narrow thread sometimes and there are some brave folk risking their own lives to try and limit the number of times it proves fatal.
Slightly more than occasional for me - around the same time as the snake bite, I also had to be air-lifted to hospital after an 'altercation' with a rather large lizard left me bleeding from forehead, shoulders and back. For a while it looked like a Country Womens' sewing club had been set loose on me. One of these little charmers...
What exciting lives people do lead - my only dices with death involved a love triangle with an Italian girl, and the occasional youthfull adventure to Millwall.
That sounds very unpleasant, BB. What kind of lizard would do a thing like that? I did go to Komodo Island about 25 years ago...absolute monsters, 4 metres long or so! You were allowed to observe them with a guide in the early morning while the blood was still cold. Later, steer well clear...enough lethal bacteria in the mouth never mind the bite! My boatman then sailed to a nearby uninhabited island and I snorkelled over a beautiful coral reef for a couple of hours. On the 24 hour trip back to Sumbawa (no shore radio on his small boat) he told me the Komodo Dragons can swim but you were more likely to encounter sharks or black and white sea serpents whose bites were equally lethal! Ignorance is bliss, eh?
It was a goanna - relatively small at about four feet long, including tail. They have a strange party piece when scared or angry - rearing up on their back legs, leaning back on their tails then running surprisingly quickly. When scared, they head for the nearest tree to climb & when angry, they head for whatever it is making them angry. The one that got me was scared, mistook me for a tree and climbed up my back. Fortunately it didn't bite, but the claws are numerous and sharp...
Why is this post followed with posts about a lizard? Tell us more about the Italian girl and the love triangle, cologne...
