An appeal has been sent in by afpop, the organiser of Operation SHOCK, which already has supplied defibrillators to many of the Algarve's Bombeiros commands.With four weeks to go, donations are needed to supply Loulé, Monchique, Vila Real do Santo António and Vila do Bispo's Bombeiros with this lifesaving equipment - will readers help by making a donation?
Operation SHOCK ... "four weeks to go and just four more defibrillators to donate."
The afpop-led drive, to raise enough money to purchase a portable defibrillator for each of the 17 Bombeiros' commands in the Algarve, has only four weeks left to run and there are still 4 Bombeiros' commands waiting to benefit -
Loulé
Monchique
Vila Real do Santo António and
Vila do Bispo.
This campaign is providing equipment that will save the lives of adults and children by providing the Bombeiros' red ambulances with defibrillators - essential equipment that they have not previously had access to.
The Portable Defibrillator units supplied to the Algarve’s Bombeiros will enable its teams to give life-saving assistance to patients whose condition has deteriorated on the ambulance journey to hospital - the model chosen also is instantly adaptable for use on children.
Operation SHOCK already has received many very generous donations, large and small, since the campaign was launched at BLiP EXPO in October last year - with a final effort over the next four weeks, the campaign’s target can be fulfilled. Will you help?
If you are in Loulé, Monchique, Vila Real do Santo António or Vila do Bispo, one of the areas yet to receive a defibrillator, or know someone who is, please accept the challenge and contribute to saving a life by making a donation.
If you live outside these areas and still wish to make a donation, any amount will help.
Details can be obtained from the afpop website
or by e-mailing the afpop office on info@afpop.com
The intention is to raise funds to purchase those remaining units and present them to the Bombeiros within the four week deadline.
One of those lives saved – could be yours.
Comments
Thank you for supporting the campaign Ed and those who have donated. The issue of who should pay for what and whether the authorities should or could do more is of course a relevant conversation, but that's not what this is about. Nor is about foreigners being asked to pay more than anyone else and yes, the Portuguese DO raise their own charity funds.
Defibrillators save lives and would benefit anyone, foreigner, Portuguese, resident or visitor, if they needed their heart restarting after an accident.
So far afpop Members and others have raised the funds to purchase and supply 13 of the 17 targeted by individual and group donations of all sizes.
It's a simple thing - we have asked for support and if you don't want to give money - then don't. If you already do other charitable work, good for you and I hope that it is successful and rewarding. This is just a request to support the initiative top purchase a defibrillator for each Bombeiros command - if you would like to do so THANK YOU. Please contact the afpop office and we'll be delighted to tell you how to make a donation. If you don't want to that's also fine, but please don't waste your time complaining about those who are trying to do something which might just save your life.
My sincere personal thanks to all those who have supported the Operation Shock campaign thus far, or who will do before the end of the campaign.
Michael Reeve, CEO, afpop
Stop whinging and put your hands in your pockets!
As a Municipal Kennel volunteer myself it is heart breaking the high number of 'ID chipped' dogs brought in. Often well behaved but traumatised at suddenly being unwanted. Then being told this is yet another "Only in Portugal" where the vet doing the chip insertion is fully aware of the dog owners ID as they are being paid by that owner but is then honour bound to destroy any record linking the dog to the owner at their end. The administration feebly expecting the owner, on their honour, to register the now ID chipped dog at the Freguesia - which almost none then do.
How many of us foreigners have been specifically targeted with unwanted dogs and cats? Often sick so needing us paying at the vets. Food left under our cars at night or by our entrances to keep the animal around until we find it at daybreak. Even, having asked around for its owner to no avail, discovering, months later 'anonymously' that the whole neighbourhood knew who the previous owner was ! Often dead and his inheritors clearing the house of anything that reminded them and his / her pet out the door as well.