A medical first-response charity, whose volunteers are credited with saving the lives of around 25 people every year, has celebrated the arrival of its fourth community rapid response vehicle at an event in West Cork to thank the people of the area for raising funds for it.
West Cork Rapid Response was the first volunteer first-responder group in the country when it was set up more than 15 years ago.
Since then, the model developed by the volunteers of West Cork Rapid Response has been adopted by similar groups throughout the country.
More than 30 volunteers, who include doctors, paramedics and emergency services personnel, are registered with the charity to respond to callouts and emergencies in their own time, within a 15km radius of wherever they are.
They work in partnership with the existing HSE National Ambulance Service.
The charity's community rapid response vehicles and volunteers are declared National Ambulance Service assets, based in and serving West Cork.
Each volunteer receives special training, along with a "jump bag" of equipment, such as mini defibrillators, which costs tens of thousands of euro.
The training and equipment costs are paid for by donations and fundraisers organised by the people of West Cork.
Many of the fundraisers are organised by the families of people who have needed the services of West Cork Rapid Response themselves.
The charity has now taken delivery of its fourth community rapid response vehicle. Months of work has gone into modifying it and adding life-saving equipment.
The vehicle its replacing has clocked up almost 150,000km, responding to hundreds of incidents over the past four years in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the country.
"What we have is a 'meitheal'," says Dr Jason van der Velde to describe West Cork Rapid Response, referring to the Irish word for a team of people who help each other.
Today's event was for the bigger meitheal -- the people of West Cork who fundraised to pay for the community rapid response vehicle, and the training of volunteers and equipment to keep the service and the volunteers on the road.
"Definitely no fundraising today," says Jason van der Velde. "This is just us saying a big 'thank you' to all the community. It's our way of introducing the new rapid response vehicle, to say to people 'you made this happen'."
300,000 callouts in 2023
A previous fundraising effort raised €200,000 for West Cork Rapid Response, underlining the value people in the area place in the charity.
Its services are run entirely voluntarily.
"Everything we fundraise goes into patient care," Dr van der Velde said.
"Over the years, people have been very generous. They just fundraise for us off their own bats when the service helps them. €20 raised at a school cake sale is just as important as a €2,000 corporate donation," he added.
Aodh O'Donnell is a founding member and chairman of West Cork Rapid Response.
He said: "We had around 300 callouts last year, everything from cardiac arrests and road traffic accidents to farm and industrial accidents.
"Since we have started we have saved an average of 25 lives a year, people who would not have survived if they had to go to hospital without our intervention."
The new community rapid response vehicle will go into service within the next fortnight, while the older vehicle will become a support vehicle.
