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Giving care in the air
WARD WITH WINGS: The crew with equipment that helps the aircraft double as an effective intensive care unit. BELOW: Pilots Joanna Battery and Ed Dickinson, together with consultant nurse Graham Lloyd Brandrick, centre, with Nobles Hospitals fixed wing air ambulance. PHOTOS: Mike Wade.
ALTHOUGH the island boasts modern health care facilities, headquatered at at the just 10-years-old Noble’s Hospital, no health service can be an island.
Given the Isle of Man’s relatively modest population, there isn’t enough demand to warrant some of the more specialist services acutely ill patients sometimes require.
Patients may therefore find themselves being transferred to the UK for treatment at specialist centres, usually in the North West of England, ensuring that they have access to some of the most sophisticated treatment available.
The Irish Sea poses a huge transport challenge, especially in emergencies. It’s for this reason that the Department of Health operates its own Air Ambulance Service, which transfers between 350 and 400 patients per year.
‘Air ambulance,’ explained Neal Mellon, divisional manager of operations, ‘is more than just our fixed wing aircraft. The service is literally a life line providing an often life-saving service to the island’s sick.’
The aircraft, a Piper Navajo Chieftain, is a fixed-wing, twin-engine plane based at Ronaldsway airport. It is currently provided by Capital Air Charter, an Essex-based firm which also provides air ambulance cover for Jersey.
The aircraft, equipped with state of the art technology from ventilators and incubators to patient transfer devices, is available to all of the island’s health services, including primary care, secondary care and mental health.
As such, donations and fundraising from the public are massively important for the service, and Mr Mellon added his thanks to those who have supported the team.
‘Your kind donations continue to add quality to this already exceptional service,’ he said.
As the service can be requested to transfer everything from a baby in utero (yet to be born) to critically ill adults, they are dependent upon their team of practitioners who are prepared to fly, often at short notice, both on and off duty. This team includes midwives, nurses, paramedics and staff grade anaesthetists.
‘We are always keen to recruit and up-skill new practitioners to maintain this essential service,’ said Mr Mellon. ‘And we have excellent practical and academic training programmes to prepare our professionals to deliver their “care in the air”.’
While the majority of Manx patients are transferred to specialist hospitals in the North West region, some need to travel further afield, anywhere from Edinburgh to London. Following the TT and Manx Grand Prix the team is always busy repatriating patients to their local hospital, which could be anywhere in the British Isles.
Neal, who leads and directs the service, said he is very proud of the ‘understanding and selfless’ team, who provide the 24/7 service often at the expense of time with their families.
Shirley Clare is one of two primary co-ordinators based at Noble’s, along with colleague Jeanne Eriksen.
‘Co-ordinating air ambulance transfers is always exciting, rewarding, demanding and unpredictable,’ said Shirley. ‘Our working day can start at any time of the day or night and on any day of the week as we cover the service 24/7. In addition, we work closely with Patient Transfer Services and meet the needs of their patients at weekends and out-of-hours.’
Shirley added that she enjoys the variety of her role, from assessing a patient’s fitness to travel to planning the transfer, ensuring the smooth transfer by ambulance and plane (or boat when appropriate) both in the island and in the UK. She also has a lead role in training and developing new practitioners.
Neal explained problems need to be overcome when dealing with the service’s biggest challenge: the weather.
‘High or gusting winds, snow and fog can delay a transfer for anything up to three days and this is where the skills of the hospital teams prove essential, stabilising and maintaining vulnerable and critically ill patients until they can be transferred safely.’
Lead nurse Graham Lloyd-Brandrick is an experienced air ambulance practicioner.
‘The safety of the patient must always come first even if it means not transferring them to a specialist centre in the first instance,’ he said. ‘There is no point in transferring a vulnerable patient in rough weather if the practitioner cannot leave their seat to safely attend to them.
‘Coping with the weather challenges emphasises our need to work closely with our colleagues in many other fields such as the meteorology team at Ronaldsway, the RAF and coastguards, retrieval teams such as NWTS (North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport Service) and others involved in our contingency plan. We also need to acknowledge the help and support we have received from the Scottish Air Ambulance and Jersey Air Ambulance in the past.’
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Weather for Isle of Man
Friday 24 May 2013
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 6 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 26 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 7 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
