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Leader's LetterSeptember 2003
Time for Central Funding of Emergency ServicesEmergency services, including the likes of Childflight, should be centrally funded and not have to rely on money from gambling to survive. The fact that vital services which are relied on heavily by the community receive the majority of their funding from gambling, or from the proceeds of cake stalls and community fundraisers, highlights the crazy funding priorities of this Government. An outstanding example of this sort of skewed thinking is the closing down of our only specialist intensive care air ambulance service for children. Officials announced that alternative arrangements had been made but there are no real alternatives to the specialised services provided by Childflight. Seven hundred children were saved by this service last year but the Government does not appear to consider that it is worth retaining. The Government should have acted immediately to provide funding before an essential community service was lost. We have the ridiculous situation of a Government sitting on a budget surplus while lives are being put at risk because of a precarious funding base for emergency services. The Government seems to consider that social engineering is more important than taking action on matters of life and death. It is past time for the Government to revisit its priorities. Barbara Stewart MP
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