St John Ambulance Guernsey has been assisting the island of Sark by providing temporary medical cover for the island’s doctor.

Station Officer Paramedic Sonia Guille was based at the Sark Medical Centre for a few days last week where she assessed and treated islanders requiring medical treatment. Like the Sark doctor Sonia was on-call for 24 hours a day and was called up in the night to respond to medical emergencies.

Sark has no cars or vans, so islanders travel around by tractor or bicycle. The Sark ambulance is towed by tractor.

St John has a long standing agreement to provide support for Sark when the regular doctor is not available. Staff from the emergency ambulance service also stepped in to help Sark last year when the then GP was unavailable due to illness.

The paramedics deployed to Sark have volunteered to work during periods when they would normally be off duty, so this has not had any impact on the operations of the emergency ambulance service in Guernsey during this time.