The International Rescue Corps is usually known for responding to and working overseas during disasters events such as earthquakes and floods, drawing specialists together from across the UK.
This strength however, has also provided significant challenges with Covid-19, explains Anne Marie Macdonald, of the IRC:
“The very thing that is a strength of the organisation, is in this case a huge weakness. The fact that our membership is spread all over the UK means that only one area in the UK has enough members in close proximity to be able to offer help during the current pandemic – Grangemouth.”
Over the past few weeks, IRC have mobilised their volunteers and assisted a local organisation, the Kersiebank Food Project in their delivery of a number of vital services to the community. IRC members have deployed their resources to deliver food parcels to the most deprived and vulnerable people in the area and also delivered the ‘Kids Breakfast Club’ supplies to the local children who attend the school ‘breakfast club’, similar to the free school meals initiative.
With supplies of PPE becoming depleted, and desperately short of hand sanitiser to help keep volunteers safe during this work, local employer INEOS has stepped in to donate hand sanitiser to allow this essential work to continue. IRC were delighted to call in to the company’s HQ in Grangemouth to collect the donation.
The donation of hand-sanitiser to the International Rescue Corps continues the local relationship between INEOS and the charity, during the current Covid-19 pandemic response.
In March, recognising the potential impact that Covid-19 would have on the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) and the NHS in terms of their ability to respond to a medical call from the site, the Emergency Response Team sought to assist in alleviating this by acquiring an additional vehicle to add (temporarily) to their fleet. As the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, INEOS Emergency Responder Graeme Wick approached the International Rescue Corps with a view to ‘borrowing’ one of their ambulances.
Emergency Response & Security Manager, Emma Russell said,
“We now have access to a specialist and well-equipped emergency response vehicle. This means that in the event that the ambulance service are significantly delayed in attending our site, we now have the ability to carry out our own patient transfer for an illness or injury of such a severity to warrant the attention of the NHS.”
