Liver Damage

”I HOPE that common sense prevails.’

Ambulance gets parking ticket as it off-loads its liver

It is the quote of the day, as it is the quote of every day. And as usual it seems to be a forlorn hope.

The words appear on the cover of today’s Guardian and are attributed to John Durkin, Yorkshire regional secretary of the GMB union.

To put them in greater context they run: ‘This clearly was an emergency and we are in the business of saving lives, not trying to destroy them. I hope common sense prevails.’

The trigger for the plea came when ambulance driver Mike Ferguson was clocked driving at 104mph as he passed a police monitored speed trap.

It mattered not that he had blue lights ablaze, not that it was 3am and his cargo was a liver urgently needed for transplant; it only mattered that he was breaking the law, and that means a day out in court.

That Mr Ferguson should be in fear of losing his driving licence and thus his livelihood is down to Alison Kerr, the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Lincolnshire, where the speeding ambulance was spotted.

She witters on about how this is a ‘difficult case’, how her service has considered all points ‘carefully’ and that the CPS believe the race to stitch a new organ into a living human body is ‘not a medical emergency’.

Back in the Guardian this is a cue for Labour MP David Hinchcliffe, who chairs the Commons select committee on health, to complain: ‘It’s like the police prosecuting the police for speeding in an emergency.’

Only if that were so, Mr Ferguson would be spared a court case by being offered the chance to take early retirement with full pension and no further questions asked.

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Posted: 27th, May 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink