A new Bumbleance Service providing daily interhospital transfers of patients across Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) commences
A new bespoke service providing daily interhospital transfers commenced this week between the new Urgent Care Centre at CHI at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown and the children’s hospitals at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght and other facilities provided inpatient services for children.
The 2020 BUMBLEance vehicle was funded 100% by public donations via this amazing “Not-for-profit” charity. It was specifically designed for sick children and their families will be operated in partnership with the HSE’s National Ambulance Service.
Ellie Mae Creighton, 4 years old with her Mam Edel O’Neill, Dublin
This new dedicated vehicle will be based at our Urgent Care Centre at CHI at Connolly in Blanchardstown and will help us transfer our patients quickly and safely in an ambulance that is specifically built for the needs of children. Children will use the BUMBLEance if they need to be transferred to admission to an inpatient bed, access a specialist service in one of our children’s hospitals or need to be transferred from one of our hospitals to another healthcare facility providing inpatient services to children such as hospices, national treatment centres and respite centres.
Commenting on the commencement of this new service, Dr Ciara Martin, Paediatric Executive Lead, CHI said ‘CHI would like to thank members of the public who donated to BUMBLEance. This means we now have a vehicle, specifically designed and tailored for children, available to us free of charge, to provide a daily interhospital transfer of our patients across our facilities at our Urgent Care Centre at Connolly and Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght Hospitals. It has all the amenities of a regular ambulance but it includes the all-important extras to make a sick child’s journey as safe, comfortable and entertaining as possible making it less stressful as they travel to our hospitals and other paediatric healthcare facilities. Thanks also to the National Ambulance Service for facilitating this.’
The Urgent Care Centre at Connolly opened in July 2019. Here we look after children and young people from the local area with minor illnesses and minor injuries. We provide a short stay observation service for patients to complete treatment over 6 hours before going home. Critical to the safe and efficient operation of the Urgent Care Centre is the transfer of patients who require further inpatient treatment at CHI Temple Street, Crumlin or Tallaght.
