Benin-Ore airlift: Air ambulance as life saver

 

The Benin-Ore expressway episode was actually done to save life. WOLE SHADARE writes that patients transported to hospital by helicopter have a better chance of surviving traumatic injuries than those transported by ground ambulance 

Stir

The evacuation by Tropical Arctic Logistics Ltd last week of a seriously ill man on the ever busy Benin-Ore Expressway with a chopper has again brought to the fore the air Ambulance as essential lifesaving tool.

The helicopter operator that caused a stir when it stopped in the middle of the Benin-Ore Expressway to airlift passengers said its operations were in line with standard procedure, adding that it landed on the ever busy road for medical services to save a life.

The chopper company said it got approval from the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency ( NAMA) , which endorsed the clearance for the flight saying it did not breach any aviation regulation in its bid to conduct life- saving operations in collaboration with Flying Doctors.

Flying Doctors Nigeria (FDN) specializes in air ambulance, medevac, remote site medical solutions, and infrastructural development and training.

TAL’s position

Briefing reporters at the airline’s headquarters at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, its Chief Operating Officer, Femi Adeniji, an aircraft engineer said the company was yet to receive any queries or communication from Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) concerning the flight.

 Adeniji said the company was surprised at the undue outrage over reportage when TAL was helicopter was only involved in operations already gaining global traction.

 He clarified that the helicopter was never involved in any scheduled flight diversion .

Adeniji said :” We wish to state that our mission for that flight was to save lives , we immediately swung into action and rushed to the site in record time to pick the individual who is currently recuperating in the hospital .

 

 “We are a licensed logistics company to carry out medical evacuation operations and was engaged to air lift an individual who suffered a serious health challenge while caught in traffic and needed emergency evacuation on the day in question.

 “The Benin – Ore road evacuation was conducted in close collaboration with security agencies , the Nigerian Army and Nigerian Police worked assiduously in trying to clear the gridlock caused by the on-going road construction.

 “They directed us to a clear portion of the road where the operation was handled free from any incident.”

To everyone’s consternation, the helicopter landed right on the expressway, picked him up and flew away.

Bystanders trooped on the streets to witness the once in a lifetime phenomenon. Of course most of them could not believe that a man was powerful enough to be hoisted away using a chopper to escape a traffic gridlock.

Critical look

Away from the controversy that trailed whether or not the operation was illegal, one needs to look at the imperative of saving lives.

Air ambulance service, though popular in Europe, America and South Africa is still largely unknown in the Nigerian environment.

 The role of an ambulance is a really essential tool for medical professionals and it is getting the right patient the right medical facilities within the right time-frame.

 When patients need to be airlifted to medical care in an emergency, the first priority is getting them to the right healthcare provider as quickly as possible. Patients are at a disadvantage in this urgent situation because they cannot determine whether air transport is a medical necessity, nor are they equipped to direct, which air ambulance provider should pick them up.

That can lead to surprise expenses when the air ambulance provider turns out not to have a contract with the patient’s health plan, even if the consumer has insurance. The patient may then be billed for the full charge of the flight or the balance left after any payment by the insurer for the out-of-network coverage.

 Over the last 10 years, there has been a dramatic change within the air ambulance industry, with a rapid expansion of operators entering the market.

 Those market changes have had far reaching effects on the costs patients must pay for services, and have resulted in patients receiving unexpected, exorbitant bills for tens of thousands of dollars for emergency transportation that the patient assumed would be covered by insurance. Air ambulance providers typically operate under one of three business models.

 Different shapes

Some air ambulance providers have both helicopters and fixed wing airplanes available. Majority of emergency medical transports take place in a helicopter, just as most air ambulances come with medically trained personnel and some degree of medical equipment.

 As a result of the increase, for profit operators were able to expand their presence in the air ambulance industry greatly. While there were virtually no for-profit air ambulance operators in 2002, more than half of the industry is now controlled by four for-profit operators.

 Since the reimbursement increase went into effect, for-profit operators have added hundreds of new air ambulance bases and vehicles nationwide: in 2003, there were 545 helicopters flying out of 472 air bases in the United States; by 2015, those numbers had nearly doubled, with 1,045 helicopters at 864 bases.

 Although air ambulance transports made up less than one per cent of total ambulance claims in 2011, they represented eight per cent of the total medi-care spending on ambulance services because of their high price tag.

 Sometimes, one feels sorry for air ambulance operators in Nigeria who are into partnership with commercial airlines because it’s an extremely difficult environment for the airlines to operate, especially when it comes to respect for departing when they are billed to do so.

 Founder and Managing Director, Flying Doctors Nigeria, Dr. Ola Orekunrin, narrated one incident to New Telegraph and how the patient was immediately evacuated by air ambulance for treatment.

She said that the patient would have died if help was not forthcoming. According to her, “for instance last week, there was a patient that we moved from Benin to Lagos.

 Her situation was that a building fell on her and her hip was so shattered that it could only be done at Igbobi General Hospital in Lagos. With her condition, it would have been difficult to move her by road because of the state of the roads as the hip has to stay completely together. So, we were able to move her successfully from Benin to Lagos.”

 Conclusion

As a nation, we have struggled to secure affordable and high quality medical care for all Nigerians. At a minimum, we should ensure that in critical emergency situations, timely, appropriate medical care – including transportation to that care – is available to all.

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