CRITICAL
At the heart of our charity are our team
of Volunteer
Emergency Medical Responders consisting of Critical Care Doctors manning a fleet of Emergency Response Vehicles. We are in the
process of expanding this team around the country to
include hundreds of EMT's, paramedics, and advanced paramedics, empowering them to
use their skills to help those who become seriously ill or injured in
their own communities.
These incredible individuals have devoted their lives to saving others. Their
rapid response, unwavering dedication to their communities and years of
training and experience have helped countless lives.
Our responders are dispatched with the National
Ambulance Service in response to a 999/112 call in their community. They
respond to incidents like cardiac arrest, road traffic collisions, workplace and farming accidents and much more. They
can provide life-saving
treatment on scene while an ambulance is on the way, like on the side of a road, in schools,
workplaces, or in your own home.
Donations
from people, businesses and communities like yours have funded essential medical equipment, ensuring that our
responders are well equipped to save lives on the front lines. This equipment
includes defibrillators, resuscitation kits, medical
diagnostic kits and more, all made
possible by fundraisers and supporters like you.
#criticalcharity | @criticalcharity | criticalcharity.ie
IRISH
COMMUNITY RAPID RESPONSE CLG T/A CRITICAL
Registered Charity No (RCN): 20070762
overview
CRITICAL is Ireland’s biggest Critical &
Advanced Volunteer Doctor Emergency Medical Response Charity.
At CRITICAL, our mission is clear: to empower communities to save lives. Our volunteers provide emergency pre-hospital care at
the scene of serious incidents and emergencies across Ireland. We are dedicated
to our vision of every person in Ireland receiving rapid and effective medical
care in a medical emergency, regardless of the circumstances.
where your money goes
We invest
in our CRITICAL Emergency Medical Response volunteers to enable them to respond
to the worst-case scenarios. The equipment we provide combined with their
medical expertise and experience enables them to act quickly and appropriately
under pressure, ensuring that they can provide the best possible care for every
patient.
However, medical equipment is expensive, and we
rely on donations to fund the equipment and supplies needed by our
responders. Every Emergency Backpack we equip our responders with costs an
average of €1,500. It costs the charity an average of €25,000 to establish
an Advanced or Critical Care Volunteer Doctor in the community, and it costs around €120,000 to equip a new Emergency Medical Response vehicle for our fleet.
Donations allow us to empower more communities to
save lives, and help us to realise our vision of an Ireland where everyone has
access to rapid emergency medical assistance when they need it most.
history
In 2008, CRITICAL funded the training of Volunteer Emergency Medical Responders in communities around the country. When a person calls 999 or 112 regarding a serious or life-threatening medical emergency, a CRITICAL Volunteer Emergency Medical Responder in the area can respond and provide emergency prehospital care. This access to medical care well within 'the golden hour' often means the difference between life and death.
In 2019, we launched Ireland's only charity funded Air Ambulance, and consistently showed how vital the HEMS Air Ambulance is to the people of Ireland since that time. We are proud of our role in providing and proving the need for a HEMS service for the people of Ireland and we thank all those who supported us and kept Helimed92 flying.
Since
early in 2023, we have been focused on expanding
our network of Volunteer Emergency Medical Responders and are already working
in partnership with the National Ambulance Service to
facilitate hundreds of off-duty EMT'S,
paramedics and advanced paramedics to respond as CRITICAL Volunteers in their
own communities. Our ground teams responded to more than 1,800 incidents over
the last three years alone, working in partnership with the emergency services
to give people the very best chance of survival and best outcome when they find
themselves seriously ill or injured.