What is an Air Ambulance?
An Air Ambulance is an emergency care airline service equipped with all lifesaving equipment, ventilators, defibrillators, and a specialist team of doctors. It is used to transport critically ill patients between cities or countries. Another name for an Air Ambulance is Aeromedical Evacuation, or simply Medevac.
Types of Flight Ambulance Services
There are two types of flight ambulance services:
- Fixed-wing flight ambulance – Fixed-wing flight ambulances mainly include airplanes such as jets, which are designed for long-distance travel and best suited for medical evacuation and repatriation of patients.
- Rotary-flight ambulance – Rotary flight ambulances include helicopters used for rescues and shorter distance flights. These are typically used in remote and offshore areas, including oil and gas installations.
Why Use Air-Medical Transport?
Air medical transport services are very popular globally and are used mainly for:
- Providing critically ill patients urgent medical care
- Reaching remote locations that are not accessible by road, and
- Accessing mountainous regions and places that lack medical facilities
Airlifting of patients is the only feasible option in remote areas. This is due to the time savings – especially when the patient is in a critical state and needs urgent medical attention. The duties of an air ambulance service provider also include providing ground transport, arranging for a hospital in the destination city or country, and getting ground clearances for the airplane.
Anavara specializes in providing timely and expert-staffed air ambulance services on a global scale. We handle all the details so you can focus on supporting your loved one through their recovery.
How Much Does a Flight Ambulance Cost?
Air ambulance fares vary from country to country, but generally costs associated with air medical evacuation services are calculated based on:
- The distance between one place to another
- Number of people accompanying the patient
- The level of urgency
- Patient’s health condition
- Landing and logistical charges for an air ambulance to land at an airport
- Miscellaneous charges such as ground ambulance charges, hospital bookings, visas, and certain other permits
How Do I Book an Air Ambulance?
Usually, there are 6 steps involved in the process of booking air medical evacuation services for emergency medical care:
- Contacting the air ambulance service provider: When a need for urgent medical evacuation arises, a distress call is made on the phone, or a high priority email is sent.
- Preparation of a medical report: A health report is prepared by the doctors at the request of the patient, stating the patient’s condition and severity of their case.
- Sending report to the Medevac team: The patient’s medical report gets sent to the Medevac team, after which the patient is assigned a designated travel doctor.
- Getting a quote for the Medevac: The facilitator will then engage their network of flying ambulance services to obtain the estimate and provide it to the patient.
- Hospital estimate: Once the estimate is prepared, an experienced air ambulance facilitator from our team will contact the best hospital available based on the destination and the condition of the patient.
- Other requirements: Visas for the patient and their companion to the destination country and tarmac clearance for the ground ambulance are other factors to consider.
Are There Alternatives to an Air Ambulance?
In less urgent cases where the patient has less financial flexibility, an air stretcher has proven to be a more budget-friendly alternative to the Air Ambulance. Although not as convenient as an Air Ambulance, the air stretcher is around 40–50% less expensive. Permission is sought from commercial airlines to accommodate a stretcher on a scheduled flight, and the airline removes a few seats and converts them into accommodation for the patient.
Anavara is able to arrange this service on request – contact us today!
Why Choose Anavara?
At Anavara, we make the process of air ambulance travel simple by helping your loved one get transported from the tarmac of the airport to the hospital of the country of your choice so you don’t have to worry about a thing – and all at an affordable price!
To discuss our services in detail and get a free quote, please contact us at info@anavara.com or send a text or WhatsApp/ Viber/ Telegram message to +1 909 9030000.