Volunteer doctors who answer the call during the ‘golden hour’

If you suffer a serious injury or sudden illness – the kind that prompts an emergency phone call – then every minute counts, and getting appropriate medical help in that so-called “golden hour” can affect the outcome. But what if you can’t get to hospital quickly?

“There’s no question, if you do not get that treatment within the first hour, the chances of survival diminish significantly,” says John Kearney, chief executive of Irish Community Rapid Response (ICRR). “And if you live in a rural area, there may be no way of getting to a medical centre of excellence in that hour.”

Fast response

Kearney and Robert Fennell, who are based in west Cork, set out to solve the local dilemma. “We both had personal experience of seeing how important it is to get that fast response in an emergency,” says Kearney. “And we know what the challenges are in a rural area.”

Their answer was to set up West Cork Rapid Response in 2008. The idea? Doctors who live locally could train as rapid responders and volunteer their time to attend to emergencies in the area, working under the 112 (formerly 999) system with the National Ambulance Service.

The duo set out initially to get a helicopter, but fast realised that ground transport was a more realistic option.

“What we have now is like a mobile intensive care unit: we try to bring as much care to the emergency site as you would get in the emergency department early on,” explains Kearney.

The other part of the jigsaw is the local community raising money for equipment and rapid-response training for doctors, and also helping out with practical, non-medical issues. “A doctor might have to leave suddenly to deal with an emergency, and a member of the community would pick up the doctor’s kids from school,” says Kearney. “Or if the doctor has to leave their car and travel to hospital in the ambulance, a local person will pick up the doctor’s car and collect them.”

Lives saved

The rapid response model has since expanded to include east Cork, and getting medical help quickly to the scene of an emergency has often made a big difference, according to Kearney.

In a quarter of cases, the local rapid response meant that ambulances could be stood down, freeing them up, he says.

“That gives important resources back into the community and it frees up the emergency department to deal with cases that can be dealt with at the community level.”

Meanwhile, the estimated number of lives saved has far exceeded the charity’s ambitions. “More than 100 people are alive today who might not have been if we hadn’t started this,” says Kearney. “When we started out, our objective was to make one difference to one life per year. Now, in east Cork alone, they are saving more than two people a month, in partnership with the national emergency services.”

And the cost of saving those lives? “We estimate that it costs us €3,500 for every life that is saved,” says Kearney, who now wants to roll out the initiative around Ireland. “We can’t have ambulances in every corner, and I think it’s up to us within our communities to help in ways that we can.”

Sense of community

Kearney has been amazed by the dedication of the medical professionals who give up their time for the rapid-response initiative. “I have so much respect for what they do; they make such a difference,” he says. “I have seen medical professionals coming back late at night from an event that would be very moving, and they would have to get up the next morning to go to the day job. I take my hat off to any medical professional who volunteers their time for their community.”

Community goodwill has also blown Kearney away. “A group in Ballinascarthy set a target to raise €70,000 in three months to get a Jeep for the West Cork Rapid Response, and they ended up raising twice that amount,” he says.

“People get what we are doing, and when the service goes out to save a child, a parent or another loved one, it affects so many people when there’s a good outcome.”

Expanding the service

Through the ICRR, Kearney wants about 300 GPs to train as local responders through University College Dublin and University College Cork over the coming years, so that the service becomes available almost nationwide. “We have a big challenge ahead of us and a big fundraising drive to get that many doctors rolled out,” he says. “But it could also possibly save hundreds of lives.”

Fundraising is a mainstay of the operation, but the ICRR is also developing rapid-response technology that they hope will support the social enterprise too. “I come from a business background, and even if you are running a charity or non-profit, it still has to pay for itself,” says Kearney.

What keeps him going is meeting the “savees” and their families. “When you meet someone who has used our service or their loved one, and especially a child, it affects me so much to see that parent thanking us that their child is alive because of our service,” he says.

“We mightn’t be there as volunteers physically doing the job of saving lives, but without the network, the chain-link support, it wouldn’t happen, and we all have our place to be part of that. The families just say, keep doing what we are doing, and that gets me out of bed very early every morning.”