Air ambulance service readies for takeoff in Tamil Nadu

A recent picture of health minister C Vijayabaskar and officials peering at an air ambulance during an exposure tour to Australia seems to have excited many senior doctors.
The picture piqued the curiosity of medical professionals since it came months after a high-level meeting that proposed to study the viability of introduction of an air ambulance service for organ transplants in the state — a major hub of medical tourism and organ transplantation in the country. Vijayabaskar said the state is working on a private-public partnership with experienced organizations like Coimbatore-based Ganga Hospitals.





"It is a complex project but we will launch it soon," he said. "If we manage to get tax cuts on fuel, exemption from airport landing charges and other levies, we will be able to reduce cost to an extent. We are also planning to retain pilots and see if insurance companies can pick up the costs." The Australian model offers valuable ideas, the minister said. "We may not be able to replicate it but we need an indigenous innovate model."

Tamil Nadu lacks a dedicated system when it comes to transporting patients needing immediate evacuation or requiring specialized treatment for trauma, organ failure and heart diseases.

"It’s our worst nightmare, every time we move a sick patient from another city," said senior heart transplant surgeon Dr K R Balakrishnan.

Facilities on board many air ambulances are inadequate, said anaesthetist Dr Suresh Rao. Patients are boarded on air ambulances with forklifts used to stack food and other items on aircraft. Lack of space and dependable power supply are also issues, he said.

Dr Balakrishnan has written to Union health minister

J P Nadda about the need for a robust air ambulance system in the state but is yet to get a reply. "Many cities don’t have airports. If they do, they don’t have operations at night. They don’t have helipads. The biggest problem is that there is no fixed flying cost. On some occasions, agencies have demanded up to Rs 20lakh to bring a patient from Hyderabad," he said.

However, the proposed system should not be limited to ferrying patients but must evolve further to enable the use of helicopters to airlift injured from accident sites to hospitals. Though a policy issued by the DGCA has included provisions for operations like this, such rescues are not conducted yet.

As per Apollo Hospitals website, the cost of an air ambulance ranges from Rs 1.6lakh to Rs 2lakh per hour. The hospitals chain-air transfers around 125-150 patients in a year across the country.