Unique medical facility being sought for Mayo town 

COMMUNITY NOTES: BALLYHAUNIS - WESTERN PEOPLE (JULY 30 EDITION)

A Ballyhaunis air ambulance base is being built by a group of local volunteers who say the new base will be a model for similar community air ambulance bases nationwide.

The facility will be the first of its type in the country and will be named in honour of local soldier Private Billy Kedian, explained Gerry O’Boyle, one of the drivers of the plan. 

The base will be a community-owned facility which will help save the lives of those with critical injuries, like brain injuries or heart attacks, he explained.

“HSE patients are thrown in on top of hospitals but should be sent to the right hospital from the start...The ambulance crew at the new air ambulance base will be able to make an assessment of the patient and decide which hospital they should be sent to.”

The ambulance base will require an investment of €2 million, said Mr O’Boyle who was speaking after the unveiling of a monument to Private Kedian, killed in Lebanon in 1999.

Along with Mr O’Boyle, the drivers behind the project are local man JT Smyth and retired army men Larry Carty and Seamus Gannon.

“In the last few weeks, we’ve been in intensive negotiations,” explained Mr O’Boyle. “We’ve talked to several ambulance groups, and we are going to Leinster House in September and we have full confidence we are going to get backing for this project.

“The ambulance will take the patient to our base and from there to hospital within ten minutes.”

Mr O’Boyle said a site will soon be announced for the new ambulance base and he’s hoping that planning permission will not be required so that the helipad can be built within months.

“We have been trying to reach Mayo County Council [and] we’re hoping we can work it without planning,” he said.