Friends will give vehicle to Romanian health workers (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Friends will give vehicle to Romanian health workers

8:58am Monday 6th July 2009 in

By Lesley Tate »

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Three medical workers will drive to Romania in an ambulance bought on eBay.

Mark Nicholson, of Airedale Hospital’s accident and emergency unit, Louise Gabrielli, of Keighley, who hopes to become a paramedic, and Samantha Taylor, of Bradford, who works at Leeds General Infirmary,will set off from Skipton and donate the ambulance to Romanian health workers.

The friends now need to raise £3,500 needed to fund the 3,000-mile trip.

On Friday, July 17, they are staging a fancy dress event at Laycock Village Hall and they are also hoping businesses will sponsor them.

Mark, 21, Louise, 18, and Samantha, 24, bought the ambulance from eBay, the internet auction site, for £500. The ambulance, which has 150,000 miles on the clock and which operated in Birmingham, will be taken to Romania, Europe’s poorest country, in August.

“It’ll be quite a journey,” said Mark. “We’re going through Paris, Rome, Munich and into Romania. We want to make a bit of a holiday out of it too.”

Once they arrive in Romania, they will work with Jubilee Outreach Yorkshire (JOY) to hand the ambulance over to a local health worker.

The charity has sent several former St John ambulances to the country.

Mark said: “People who sustain life-threatening injuries can wait for the next available ambulance and more than likely die in the process, or rely on friends and neighbours to drive them to hospital. As friends and neighbours are not trained paramedics, the outcome is usually poor.”

The event at Laycock will start at 7pm and will have an emergency services theme. Tickets cost £5 from the Turkey Inn, Laycock, and from reception at Airedale General Hospital at Steeton, near Keighley.

To sponsor the team contact the three at ebay2romania@gmail.com or joyworld.org.uk.

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Comments(13)

edelweiss_hvit says...
12:15pm Mon 6 Jul 09

First of all:
Have you ever been in Romania?
Second of all: Where do you want to bring that ambulance? On the top of the mountains?
Third of all: Do you think that the Romanians need your second hand car? Do you know how much you'll have to pay for the registration due to the fact that it's old?
The conclusion: You paid 500 for the ambulance and now you need 3500 to fund the trip. If you want to visit some countries just say it like this. Romania is not the poorest country from UE. There are poor, rich and medium people. We face a lot of problems like corupcy, financial crisis, etc and like every country we have bad things and good things. Get out the box and see the real world. Don't feed your brain with the Romania's image from the past. I still can watch at CNN movies since 1990, with the same poor children and old people from the Romanian metros. something has changed and you are stii living in that period.
Good luck. Open your minds.