Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“Today’s announcement by the Dublin government that the air ambulance service in the Republic is to be made permanent underscores the vital need for one in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is now the only part of the British Isles not to have such a service.
“The news – coming as it does so soon after the tragic and untimely death of Dr John Hinds who campaigned so passionately for a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) – underscores a glaring gap in health provision in Northern Ireland.
“As things stand, if someone in Northern Ireland is seriously injured they are at the mercy of where their injury occurs with there being no direct access to our only hospital with neurosurgical, spinal, pelvic, interventional radiology, cardiac and thoracic services (the Royal) if someone in injured outside the Belfast catchment area.
“In the aftermath of Dr Hinds’s death an online petition was set up calling for an air ambulance service for Northern Ireland. To date it has gathered almost 50,000 signatures.
“The powers that be need to take notice not just of the emotive argument that a service should be established as a fitting memorial to Dr Hinds but also of the powerful statistical data he presented to the Health Minister in support of his call for an air ambulance in a meeting he and I had with the Health Minister just a matter of weeks before his death.”