Local News
East Anglian Air Ambulance is still flying and saving lives, thanks to the community The team at East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) has been working incredibly hard to keep the charity’s helicopters and rapid response vehicles operating throughout the crisis, never missing a shift. The medical teams are available 24/7 (with the rapid response vehicles used at night when both helicopters are offline) and ready to respond when needed. While Covid-19 has been dominating the news, people are still having cardiac arrests, medical emergencies and accidents at home and road traffic collisions, which is when the EAAA critical care teams are needed to help save lives and get patients to hospital for further treatment. Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire are well served by EAAA, which flies out of Cambridge Airport between 12pm and 12am with the rest of the day covered by rapid response vehicle. The teams have been tasked to Bedfordshire 56 times so far this year, and 167 times to Cambridgeshire to provide emergency care. EAAA is proud to keep operating despite the challenges Covid-19 has presented. The main change is that its teams now have to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) on all missions. And will have to do so for the foreseeable future. The risk of being exposed to Covid-19, when the teams know very little about the patients they are treating, is going to be high for a long time. Especially as the EAAA doctors and paramedics are delivering critical care procedures
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which put them at a greater risk of coming into contact with droplets from a patient. Adapting to this need and sourcing and financing the equipment has been a huge task for the charity. Thanks to an overwhelming response to its emergency PPE appeal, the community has come through and helped to support the charity at an uncertain time. However, to keep its helicopters flying and its team operational for the rest of the year, continued support from the community will be required. EAAA need to raise £13 million a year to develop and deliver its lifesaving service. All of its scheduled fundraising events and bucket collections for 2020 have been cancelled, due to the need to observe social distancing. To help East Anglian Air Ambulance keep flying and saving lives, please give in any way that you can. Making sure its teams can operate safely has been the number one priority. Now, the charity needs to make sure it can continue to raise funds throughout the rest of the year. There are several ways you can help EAAA from home. You can make a one-off or regular donation, sign up to play its weekly lottery, set up your own sponsored fundraising challenge or consider leaving the charity a gift in your Will. Anything you can do will help to keep EAAA’s life-saving teams in action. Call 03450 669 999 or go online to www.eaaa.org.uk to help. Thank you.
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