Recent liver transplant problem

just heard this story on rte news. a 14yo was on the runway to fly to uk from ireland for her liver transplant last saturday i think. a donor had died and a suitable liver was available in london for transplant, but because the donor was deceased there was only a 6 to 8 hr window. had to make hospital by 2am so sadly by 11.30pm ish there was no point in making the 4 hr trip. the family apparently got a call at about 7.30pm to come over and were obviously overjoyed as she was waiting since august 2010. they waited for a helicopter or plane from irish aer corps but there was no sign of any coming. apparently base in sligo were never informed of the situation and crew there were basically sitting around through no fault of theirs. baldonnel were informed hours later too and were happy to immediately arrange transport to reach london by 1am. incredibly, someone in authority refused permission to the aer corps for that flight. obviously someone seriously messed up here, its quite disgraceful really. i heard her dad talk on tv3 and obviously it was pretty heartrendering stuff, the girl is very upset still apart from being very ill too. although it didnt cause the mess, i was annoyed to see the mcaleeses were in monaco that weekend no doubt courtesy of aer corps.

I think this is more complex than it appears - so I wouldnt jump in and blame the air corps. News reports suggest that a private company had a contract for patient transport (was the Air Corps responsible for transport?) and that one of the requested air corps crafts was transporting another patient at the time.

I am not actually blaming the aer corps. someone at a high level of authority here refused permission for the flight that would have landed at london at 1am and she would have made the hospital on time.

There appears to be a lot of confusion over what actually happened. The story earlier today was that the Air Corps were away on a government flight at the time (I didn't hear that story since though, so don't know how true it was), one coastguard station wasn't contacted although they were available, so by the time the 2nd coastguard got the request and made arrangements, it was too late.

Definately some confusion around this. Story I read was that the Air Corps helicopter was on a rescue mission elsewhere at the time. Agree with the Minister that there needs to be an enquiry into this. Incidentally, the much criticised Govt Jet is also an Air Ambulance and is used for events like this, so the question will be, why wasn't it

From what I heard on the news on my way home yesterday, the jet was offered but the HSE refused it. Any truth to this I wonder?

Actually, just spotted this now

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/offer-of-jet-refused-in-teen-liver-op-blunder-2812796.html

Mpsox said:

Definately some confusion around this. Story I read was that the Air Corps helicopter was on a rescue mission elsewhere at the time. Agree with the Minister that there needs to be an enquiry into this. Incidentally, the much criticised Govt Jet is also an Air Ambulance and is used for events like this, so the question will be, why wasn't it

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The Government jet was offered. It was due into Dublin at about 10 with the President but could have flown down to collect the girl and got her to London in plenty of time. For some reason, the offer was refused. The RAF was even on Alert to fly over and collect her but they were stood down. It just sounds like someone really messed up. Just a shame the consequences are so serious. I hope she gets another chance.

Who are the EMSS -- the emergency medical support service.? What do they do?

The EMSS are private contractors employed by the HSE

From their webiste:
"Our primary role is in the transport of Transplant Teams for organ retrieval and also the return of the team and organ to the Transplant Unit.

When required unaccompanied Organ Transport is provided, for example, if the organ is being flown either in or out of the country and the handover point is one of the Airports, or indeed collection from the airport for delivery to the transplant teams hospital base."



Small airport just 20 minutes away in Enniskillen
I wonder if they could have driven there from Leitrim and had the RAF take the girl to London

ajapale said:

Who are the EMSS -- the emergency medical support service.? What do they do?

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They provide emergency transplant transport in Ireland and co-ordinate moving patients abroad for treatment. Doesn't sound like it was their fault though.

micmclo said:

Small airport just 20 minutes away in Enniskillen
I wonder if they could have driven there and had the RAF take the girl to London

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The RAF would have flown to Sligo to collect since it was life and death. They were stood down because the HSE thought they had the Irish Coast Guard helipcopter but no-one seemed to realise the time constraints.

Sunny said:

They provide emergency transplant transport in Ireland and co-ordinate moving patients abroad for treatment. Doesn't sound like it was their fault though.

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I'm confused. The HSE subcontracted the job of arranging transport to EMSS? I would have assumed that if you subcontracted this work, the subcontractor would be responsible for arranging the aircraft etc. from whatever source (be it private or public). So why was the HSE ringing arround making the arrangements? If the HSE are going to do the legwork, what use is having EMSS? Or was the confusion caused because both the HSE and EMSS were both trying to do the same thing, even though the task should have been left to one of them?

csirl said:

I'm confused. The HSE subcontracted the job of arranging transport to EMSS? I would have assumed that if you subcontracted this work, the subcontractor would be responsible for arranging the aircraft etc. from whatever source (be it private or public). So why was the HSE ringing arround making the arrangements? If the HSE are going to do the legwork, what use is having EMSS? Or was the confusion caused because both the HSE and EMSS were both trying to do the same thing, even though the task should have been left to one of them?

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Could well be. By the sounds of it, the company only tries to source private transport if there are no State options. To organise a State resource, they need to go through the HSE Ambulence control who liases with Coast Guard and Air Corps. Once told there is no State transport, they attempt to source private transport but still need hospital/HSE approval. Bit of a mess really.

Here is a good timeline of events. Feel really sorry for the family. I hope the organ found a home and didn't go to waste.

[broken link removed]

From what I've read you would have to question what the point of the EMSS is - they didn't ask whether the organ was time limited or not (ie from living or dead donor) - and everything seems to have been referred back to the HSE.

Also they didn't suggest to the family to head to Dublin for the Aer Corps jet which would have been the best option.

As someone else pointed out on Boards, there was the option of belting it down to Shannon and onto a Ryanair flight to London and I'd presume there would have been late flights to London from Dublin also. My understanding is that there wasn't a specific need for an air ambulance or having a doctor in tow, it was just get the patient there.

Agree with above.

First call was at 7:30pm - plenty of time to get to an airport. With the benefit of hindsight, the best option for the patient and her parents would have been to buy a fully flexible business class type airfare in advance where they could simply turn up at the airport on any date and be guaranteed a seat on the next flight to London.