MONMOUTH Rotary visited the new Wales Air Ambulance base in Cardiff recently to meet the pilots, medics, support staff and their helicopter.

Wales Air Ambulance covers the whole of Wales every single day. Each year the helicopters attend around 2,500 missions, covering rural countryside, bustling towns and cities, along Welsh coastline and across our mountain ranges. The four airbase operations in Cardiff, Caernarfon, Llanelli and Welshpool are ready to save lives wherever needed.

Wales Air Ambulance can be there for anyone in Wales within 20 minutes but they don’t just fly patients to hospital, they take A&E directly to the patient. The critical care practitioners have some of the most pioneering equipment and skills in the world, including blood products and techniques to save lives.

The helicopter that works from Cardiff is dedicated to inter-hospital transfer work which is an important role helping children who need to be moved to specialist paediatric and neonatal centres in the UK such as Great Ormond Street. Working with other Wales NHS teams a custom-built highly advanced flight incubator has been developed that will fit in the helicopter which enables seriously ill babies to be transported while being monitored by the medics.

The service costs £6.5 million every year to keep running. It does not get direct funding from government and also fails to qualify for Lottery funding so relies on charitable donations.

Rotary president Sandra Davey thanked the staff and said: “We support Wales Air Ambulance every year, but this visit has demonstrated the special work that you undertake, which makes a real difference to the lives of patients.”

She then presented Liesel Townley with a donation of £1,250.