When the second wave of CoronaVirus hit India hard, the entire nation united and fought against the Pandemic. Patients from all across the country were being transported all across India. Mainly, a lot of patients from north India were flown to the Southern States for better treatment. Among all the cities in South India, Hyderabad has seen the most patients flying in from other states. In this blog, let us understand what made Hyderabad one of the choicest Air Ambulance providers.
Hyderabad is the Best Location for Air Ambulances transferring Covid-19 Patients with ECMO Transport
Airport in the heart of the city – Hyderabad, has Begumpet airport, located in the middle of the city. All the major private and public sector hospitals are easily reachable from Begumpet airport. The officials at the airport also made special arrangements for the quick transfer of airlifted Corona patients. They arranged for the smooth landing of the air ambulances, even at night. This made the life of air ambulance providers a bit easier in difficult times. ICATT air ambulance handles end to end transfer of air ambulance patients. As soon as they landed at Begumpet airport, ground ambulances were arranged to shift the patient via road to their destination hospital.
Co-operative officials – “We have been able to airlift patients without wasting any time because of the cooperation of the officials concerned. We assist the patients right from their residence to shifting him to the hospital in Hyderabad,” Rahul Singh explained. The primary prerequisite is obtaining a No Objection Certificate-NOC from the collectors of the source and destination districts. He said that in just two hours, they were able to finish all formalities and airlift a patient from Gujarat to “Under the supervision of a team of doctors, we shift patients in an eight-seater King Air B200 aircraft adhering to all Covid safety precautions. An isolation pod is also used for isolating the patient,” he said. The local Telangana Police assisted in every way to shift the patients quickly to their destination hospital once they landed at the airport. In some emergency cases, a green channel was established, which saved the lives of critically ill patients.
When Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar announced that the state had enough beds and oxygen to meet the requirements of coronavirus patients, at least 100 critical Covid-19 patients have been airlifted so far in April and May 2021.
State-of-the-art treatment facilities: Hyderabad is blessed with state heart health infrastructure and advanced medical expertise. Due to such excellent medical care, Hyderabad has seen patients coming in from major cities like Delhi and Mumbai. In addition, around 50 big and mid-sized hospitals were able to meet the standards to treat Corona patients successfully.
Most patients brought to Hyderabad were from Mumbai, Rajkot, Bhilai, Raipur, Durgapur, Patna, Delhi, and cities like Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Nagpur.
Patients demand – Dr Rahul Singh Sardar and Dr Shalini Nalwad, Co-founders and Directors of ICATT Air Ambulance Service, explained that there had been a sharp increase in the demand for air ambulances from the Northern States and Hyderabad was preferred by the family members. At one point, there was a minimum of one air transfer of a corona patient to Hyderabad. Therefore, service providers had to make special arrangements to handle the inquiries about the costs involved in shifting a patient to Hyderabad.
ICATT ECMO transfers to Hyderabad
ECMO is a device that can replace the function of the heart and lungs when the lungs cannot function properly on their own. COVID-19 causes pneumonia inflammation of the lungs, so they cannot supply oxygen adequately. Ventilator alone will not be sufficient; hence ECMO is crucial here. Since ECMP can act as the patient’s heart or lungs, it is quite a complex device, and its availability is incredible. Only major hospitals and air ambulances like ICATT have them. For airlifting of Corona patients, mostly chartered flights with oxygen support were used. In extreme critical cases, they were brought in with ECMO support. “We have done more than 75 ECMO initiations and transfers in six months, one of the highest number in the world done in this short time. In April 2021, we have done 39 transfers, about 60 per cent of them to Hyderabad,” said Dr Rahul Singh Sardar, co-founder director of ICATT Air Ambulance Service.
With the dedication of medical, nonmedical and government officials, many COVID patients lives were saved by timely transfer to Hyderabad. If you need an Air Ambulance for a COVID-19 patient, contact us 24 hours, 7 days a week on +91-9701111156. Our flight coordinators are there for your service.
