West Wales Motorcycle Show - Charities

The charities the West Wales Motorcycle Show have supported are:

Ty Hafan

Ty Hafan, the Children's Hospice in Wales, is a very special place. Its located in its own grounds on the banks of the Channel at Sully, close to Barry to the west of Cardiff.

It was purpose built and opened in January 1999 to provide help and support for the 300+ families, living within Wales, where one or more of the children suffer from a life-limiting illness.

Please visit the Ty Hafan website for more information

Air Ambulance

As we all know, Wales has a large rural population and lots of remote countryside. This makes service by road ambulance very difficult - sometimes impossible - and very time consuming.

In an emergency, every minute counts!

For example, it takes 3 hours for a road ambulance to transport an emergency patient from Aberystwyth to the University of Wales Hospital in Cardiff. The air ambulance can make the same trip in only 40 minutes!

How will an air ambulance benefit the patient?

Increased survival and recovery rates!

By rapidly reaching a patient with two paramedics (who can begin treating the patient en route to the hospital), the chances of survival and even a full recovery are greatly increased.

Medical personnel know the crucial importance of treating a victim of traumatic injury within "the Golden Hour". The first hour immediately following a traumatic injury is so called because if the patient receives medical attention within that time period, he is much more likely to survive the injury and recover from it. When a patient goes without medical attention within this first hour, the risks of non-recovery and even death rise exponentially.

Please visit the Air Ambulance website for more information

Bloodbike Wales

The NHS needs to carry a large number of items between hospitals 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. During the day they use their own system of drivers and vehicles. Between 7pm and 7am during the week and 24 hours over the weekend and on bank holidays their system stops. During these times the NHS in Wales uses the police, the ambulance service, taxis and couriers to carry blood, samples, documents and many other items between hospitals. This is where Blood Bikes Wales comes in.

The Blood Bikes Wales members are volunteers who give their time and effort freely to their cause.

www.bloodbikeswales.org.uk

Ferryside Lifeboat

Ferryside is one of 35 independent lifeboat stations around the country (receiving no direct funding from the RNLI). It’s unique in that it’s the only lifeboat in the world to be supported by St John’s Ambulance; an association that began when St John Ambulance had one of 66 first aid posts down at Ferryside.

The lifeboat serves not only the Towy Estuary and Carmarthen Bay, but also Burry Port and Tenby if there are no other boats available – quite a big area. There is a core crew of 3 coxswains who live and work in the village. The boat can operate with 2 crew, but 3 are preferred and there is a crew of 12 volunteers