CALLING AN AMBULANCE in a medical emergency has become an accepted procedure of the times in which we live and it is only when that service is under threat that we realise how important it is. 

Bourne is currently served by the East Midlands Ambulance Service (NHS Trust) but drastic changes are proposed that do not meet with universal approval. 

The word ambulance comes from the Latin ambulare meaning to go and is used today to denote a vehicle designed to take the disabled in battle or civil life to hospital. It was invented by Baron Jean Dominique Larrey (1766-1842), a French surgeon, and used by Napoleon during his campaigns but the British did not adopt the idea until after the Crimean War of 1854-56 and other powers subsequently followed suit. Under the Geneva Convention of 1864, this method of first aid was given neutral protection. 

During the Great War of 1914-18, the ambulance wagon, as it was then known, was a canvas covered vehicle marked with the Geneva cross and constructed to hold four stretchers and six men seated. It was light and adaptable for quick transport and became the forerunner of the ambulances we know today. 

A civil ambulance association was first organised in England in 1878 by the Knights of St John and this society also provided training in first aid in order that assistance might be given to those who sustained injuries in civil life. The success of the enterprise led to the formation of ambulance corps in all parts of the country with policemen, railwaymen and factory employees holding certificates of the association and since then, the evolution of ambulance work has been rapid and notably successful.

The ambulance service in Bourne began eighty years ago at the Butterfield Hospital in North Road, now used as a day care centre for the elderly. It was run by the St John Ambulance Brigade after the Bourne division had been set up following a public meeting called in 1931 by Dr John Galletly (1899-1993), a much-loved family doctor who served this town for more than 40 years. As a result, it was agreed to start first aid classes and to recruit volunteers to man a recently acquired ambulance that had been consigned to the town for use in emergencies. 

The response was so good that forty names were handed in and the new organisation was formed. By March of that year, thirty members had passed their preliminary examinations in first aid procedures and Edgar Judge, a North Street chemist, was appointed ambulance officer. 

Once qualified through the examination procedure, the men were assigned to ambulance duties when required but these did not always run smoothly. The first patient to be conveyed in the Bourne ambulance was Mr F North of Mill Drove who was placed on a stretcher which was then loaded into the back and the ambulance set off for the Butterfield Hospital a short distance away but as it was crossing a gutter, the vehicle bounced and the back doors swung open.  

The stretcher started to slide out of the back but one of the attendants managed to stop it before it deposited its patient in the street. Mr North recovered from the indisposition which needed an ambulance journey to hospital and never held a grudge for the mishap. In 1936, when the brigade marked its fifth anniversary, he gladly accepted an invitation to the celebration dinner and even responded to the toast of "The Visitors". 

There were other embarrassing incidents and on one occasion, when the ambulance was called out to collect a man having a fit in the street, the attendants found that a crowd of bystanders were already rendering assistance and everyone present insisted on lending a hand when he was lifted into the vehicle, some even climbing inside to put him on the stretcher. The attendant closed the doors and the ambulance sped off to hospital, taking with it half a dozen of the enthusiastic helpers. 

After those early days, the scope of the brigade was widened and its members became more proficient and when the ambulance service was eventually taken over by Kesteven County Council, they continued to carry out voluntary work as well as report for duty as attendants when needed.  

The ambulance service was subsequently taken over by Lincolnshire County Council during the reorganisation of local government in 1974 and by this time an ambulance station had been established at the corner of Queen's Road and Harrington Street which remained the location until November 1979 when the brick and asbestos building was extensively damaged by a serious fire in which a young mechanic lost his life.  

A temporary ambulance station was set up in the grounds of Bourne Hospital alongside the A15 in South Road where a purpose built four bay building was erected in1980 and run by the Lincolnshire Ambulance Service (NHS Trust). The hospital closed in 1998 and the site sold for housing development in the summer of 2003 when the hospital complex was demolished to make way for new houses.  

But the ambulance station remained tucked away in one corner, run by the East Midlands Ambulance Service (NHS Trust) following the regionalisation of ambulance trusts in England in June 2006, an amalgamation of several other services and covering a population of 4.8 million people in six counties. 

The service currently employs over 3,200 staff at more than 70 locations, including two control rooms at Nottingham and Lincoln, with the largest staff group being accident and emergency personnel while their crews respond to over 670,000 emergency calls every year (2011 figures).  

It is this vast undertaking that is now the subject of re-organisation proposals that involve the closure of the Bourne ambulance station to be replaced by local standby points where ambulances will park at the roadside and wait between calls, a system that has been widely condemned and is now the subject of a public consultation with a final decision being made in the New Year.