Protect ambulance drivers

Published: 20 August, 2010

• IMPOSING parking fines on ambulance drivers carrying out their role in helping very ill patients is deplorable (West End Extra, August 13). 

Not only are patients at risk with delays for treatment or being late going home but the drivers themselves cannot afford one and a half days’ wages (£60) after stoppages simply for doing their job. 

Ambulance drivers work long hours and have little time to even go to the loo! 

This is the nature of the job. Drivers accept this but now dare not leave their ambulance for fear of getting a ticket. One warden tried to give me a ticket while I was sitting in it.

As for a report stating a complaint from the fire service, I have never seen a fire engine be delayed on Grafton Way. They are just as likely to be delayed by buses parked in a “resting” bay and the normal bus stop. Emergency blue light ambulances do not appear to have a problem, so why do fire engines?

Camden Council officers seem not to know the work ambulances do and seem to have the view that they only take private patients. In over three years I have never carried a private patient to an NHS hospital. 

One wonders what would happen if an NHS ambulance driver got a ticket? Unison would go up the wall and drivers may walk out. I would not blame them giving this some thought.

What a pity Camden Council is raising a quick and easy buck from the providers of a much-valued service. 

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