The Midlands Air Ambulance Charity is dear to the hearts of many Freemasons in the Province, providing a service which is especially important in a thinly populated rural area such as ours. The PGM, RW Bro Rev’d David Bowen, and his Deputy, VW Bro Michael Roff, presented a further £10,000 to the MAAC at Strensham Airbase on 30 April 2016. £6,000 of this was raised by Herefordshire Freemasons and provided through the Herefordshire Masonic Charity Association. The other £4,000 came from the Grand Charity as part of its programme of support for local causes throughout England and Wales, and which is distributed through the Provinces.
On the same occasion the Provincial Grand Masters for Gloucestershire and Worcestershire also presented cheques for £4,000 each, from the Grand Charity, making a total of £18,000 from the three Provinces on the day.
The Midlands Air Ambulance service operates three helicopters, one at Strensham in Worcestershire, near the end of the M50, and the others at RAF Cosford in Shropshire and Tatenhill in Staffordshire. Each is crewed by a pilot and two paramedics, or a paramedic and a doctor. One of the paramedics will generally be a Critical Care Paramedic, qualified to administer a higher level of medication. On the day of our visit to Strensham the other was a HART paramedic, a member of a Hazardous Area Response Team.
The three aircraft between them carry out about 2,000 missions each year, which works out at an average of just under two per day per aircraft. In Herefordshire and Worcestershire 32% of the calls are to road traffic accidents and 26% to medical emergencies. 12% are for sports-related injuries. You can find out more about their work on their excellent website.
It is an expensive operation to run. Each mission costs an average of £2,500, and each minute in the air an average of £25. Paramedics are employees of the regular ambulance service, but their time on air ambulance duty is paid for by the MAAC. The charity is entirely reliant on voluntary donations, and each county has a dedicated fundraising manager to ensure that these donations keep coming in.
Herefordshire Freemasons are very proud to have been giving substantial support for this essential charity for a number of years, which will surely continue into the future.
(April 2016)