adminMedical emergencies can occur anywhere and at any time. They may require urgent evacuation of a patient over long distances in a well-equipped air ambulance to the nearest most appropriate hospital. A person might, for instance, be gored by a wild animal in a game park, remote from any hospital, or suffer a heart attack hundreds of kilometres from any medical facility.
Similarly a person admitted to a local hospital from, for instance, a heart attack may need to be flown urgently to South Africa for medical procedures not available locally.
A person in such a serious condition may need to be flown there by air ambulance, since travel on a scheduled flight might not be possible because of the patient’s condition.
It is good news, therefore, that there is now a dedicated medical air ambulance available in Zimbabwe. The new air ambulance, operated by Cimas Emergency Air Rescue Service, is the only dedicated air ambulance north of the Limpopo River and south of Kenya.
The air ambulance is a twin-engine Beachcraft King Air 200 aircraft, which has been fitted with state-of-the-art intensive care facilities, including what is probably the most modern defibrillator in the country.
The defibrillator can be used to re-start a stopped heart, slow down or speed up a patient’s heart rate, take a blood pressure reading and check the patient’s temperature.
The air ambulance is an intensive care unit on the wing, as Cimas Emergency Air Rescue Service operations manager Shingisayi Chibvongodze likes to describe it.
The ventilator in the air ambulance can be used for an adult or a child. After each flight, the cabin is disinfected and the linen changed.
The Beechcraft King Air 200 can take off and land on any type of runway, whether it is tar, gravel or grass. It only requires a runway of 800 metres to land and take off, making it easy for it to land in remote areas such as game parks and tourist resorts.
The aircraft is pressurised, which is an important factor when evacuating critically ill patients, especially those with head, chest or traumatic injuries.
It can travel at an altitude of up to 29 000 feet above sea level, allowing it to fly above the weather at up to 480 kilometres per hour.
It can fly for six hours without refuelling, making it ideal for flying anywhere in southern, central and east Africa.
A doctor and intensive care unit-trained nurse, both of whom have advanced cardiovascular life support training and experience, attend emergencies requiring the air ambulance.
They are with the patient all the time, throughout the flight, monitoring the patient’s vital signs and providing any intensive care treatment required.
They are in communication with ground staff and with the hospital to which the patient is being taken through radio and phone links.
On landing at the airport closest to the hospital to which the patient is to be admitted, they attend to the transfer of the patient from the aircraft to a waiting ambulance and accompany the patient all the way to the hospital, where they hand the patient over to hospital staff.
The air ambulance can take two stretchers but ordinarily is only fitted with one, since in most cases a single patient will be transferred.
When a person suffers a heart attack or traumatic injury or stops breathing or becomes serious ill for unknown reasons, it is important for that person to be admitted as quickly as possible to hospital.
It is also important, when being transferred to hospital by ambulance, for there to be the necessary resuscitation equipment and personnel trained in using it in the ambulance.
When the distance to the hospital is such that an air ambulance is required, it is particularly important for the air ambulance and the medical crew aboard it to be adequate to deal with any medical emergency during the flight.
That is why the Cimas Emergency Air Rescue Service air ambulance has on board all the equipment and resuscitation drugs one would expect to see in a hospital intensive care unit.
It is also why there is always a doctor and at least one nurse with the patient from the start to the end of the medical emergency evacuation.
The medical crew ensures that the condition of the patient remains stable throughout the journey, both aboard the aircraft and on the subsequent journey by road to the hospital.
In a medical emergency the speed with which a person can be transferred to hospital and the medical resources and facilities aboard the air ambulance can make a difference as to whether the patient lives or dies.
It can also make a difference to the prognosis for the patient’s recovery.
Some medical aid packages include emergency air rescue services among the benefits available for those who are on those packages.
The Cimas Emergency Air Rescue Service is available for emergency medical evacuations not only in Zimbabwe but anywhere within the SADC region and even beyond.
Online Reporter