TWO years after Health Secretary Alan Milburn called for paramedics to inject heart attack victims with life-saving drugs paramedics have yet to treat a single North-East victim.

In February 2001 the Darlington MP said he wanted to see paramedics giving heart attack victims kerbside injections of a powerful new type of clot-busting drugs.

Yesterday, during a visit to Darlington's new ambulance station, Mr Milburn insisted that everything was going according to plan.

He said: "There are risks associated with thrombolytic drug injection although it is a life-saver. It is very important we get it right, people have got to be properly trained."

The Health Secretary said training to inject clot-busting drugs should take place this year and injections begin next year.

At present, paramedics can only take people who have suffered a heart attack to a hospital where clot-busting drugs can be administrated by doctors.

It has been estimated that injections given at the scene of heart attacks could save thousands of lives. But one drawback is that the injections cost £600 each, ten times the cost of older clot-busting drugs.

Checks by The Northern Echo have confirmed that the North East Ambulance Service, which covers County Durham, Tyneside, Wearside and Northumberland, has only just started training of staff in clotbusting drug injection.

Further south, the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (Tenyas) has more of its staff trained to use the drug but has no firm timetable for introducing kerbside injections.

In another difference between the two services, all the front-line ambulances used by Tenyas are equipped with a new generation of electronic defibrillators, which are needed to diagnose whether clotbusting drugs should be given.

However, not all the North-East service's front-line vehicles have been converted to carry the machines.

Heart attacks affect about 270,000 Britons a year, half of whom die within 30 days.

Simon Featherstone, the chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service, said: "The majority of our ambulances now have the new defibrillators and over the course of the next year we will be delivering early thrombolytic drug treatment."

A Tenyas spokeswoman said two-day training courses for paramedics started last year but they still had no firm date for beginning the injections.

The Government placed heart disease at the top of its health agenda as a result of The Northern Echo's A Chance to Live campaign to improve services for heart patients.

The campaign was launched following the death of the paper's deputy chief photographer, Ian Weir, in June 1999.

The 38-year-old Darlington father-of-two had waited seven months to see a consultant surgeon about when he might have a triple heart bypass operation