Background

The agglomeration of Moscow and the Moscow region is the largest in terms of population in our country. For physicians and medical pilots, this means only one thing: more people — more accidents, challenges, incidents and patients who need help.

However, despite the developed transport infrastructure of the region, its congestion imposes serious restrictions on the possibility of emergency transportation of patients. Often, the difference between a patient’s life and death is a matter of minutes (if not seconds).

At the same time, according to the new rules, patients must be delivered to specialised healthcare facilities, but it happens that these facilities are far away from the place of evacuation, which negatively affects the possibility of safe and prompt transportation of the patient by road. And here, helicopter ambulance aircraft becomes capable of being able to fly out as soon as possible and deliver doctors to any point in the region of patient care and quickly and safely deliver him to the hospital.

How is everything arranged? 

Our aeromedical team of the Territorial Centre for Disaster Medicine of the Moscow Region is on constant alert directly at the territory of the Podushkino Helipark base of medical aviation. Each brigade takes up duty at 9 a.m. and is on duty for a full day.

As a rule, we carry out the evacuation of 2 patients a day, but there are very busy days when we receive 3 or more applications for the evacuation of patients. Much depends on the weather and other factors.

Despite the fact that in recent weeks thunderstorms and strong winds are frequent in central Russia, the intensity of departures remains the same. This is due to the fact that with sudden changes in the weather, many people feel worse, “jump” pressure, heart problems occur, especially in elderly patients. However, the flight and technical personnel have extensive experience working with helicopters of this model in various conditions, which allows us to always be on alert.

As soon as an application for the need to evacuate a patient arrives at the air ambulance dispatcher’s desk in Helipark, the approval procedure begins with the aviation services of the Moscow region, studying the meteorological situation and other aspects to assess the safety and effectiveness of departure.

An application for the use of airspace is submitted by the RVS dispatching service to the Moscow Center for Automated Air Traffic Control in Vnukovo. It takes about 30 minutes to get permission to take off from civilian companies, but helicopters with the status of MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) receive such permission within 5 minutes.

As a rule, it takes 10-15 minutes from the moment a decision is made to take off until a helicopter with a team of doctors flew into the air.

It should be noted that as part of our work, we carry out both scheduled transportation and emergency departures. This can be a car accident or technological disaster, where both children and adults are affected. So, most recently, we evacuated a victim of a fire at the Northern Thermal Power Station. A patient with burns of 2 and 3 degrees was taken to a specialised centre in Podolsk. We also often have to transport patients to the Lyubertsy children's burn centre. At the same time, the helicopter’s medical equipment allows not only monitoring the patient’s health status, but also, if necessary, conducting resuscitation procedures, as well as supporting life activities until the patient is admitted to specialised hospitals.

Since we have to work in conditions that are close to extreme, we have specialists with extensive practical experience. At the same time, we try to improve our skills all the time - in our free time, we constantly contact both with the pilots and technicians of the Russian Helicopter Systems, as well as with manufacturers of medical equipment. We work out the interaction, conduct training, learn new equipment.

A full-fledged ambulance service in the Moscow Region appeared recently and many ideas come to us with experience. We are constantly in search of the most effective and rational solutions. So, at our request, the RVS equipment, together with the helicopter manufacturer, optimised the ventilation system in the helicopter, which made it possible to create more comfortable working conditions for the air-medical brigade and patients.

Why Ansat?

Well, firstly, it’s always nice to see that a domestic “product” is no worse, and in some cases better, than a foreign one. So, in comparison with the Eurocopter and Bell helicopters I have flown on, the Ansat is much more comfortable for medical missions, and the medical module of the helicopter allows you to provide qualified modern assistance and is in no way inferior to the capabilities of an ambulance carriage. In general, having 5 years of experience in disaster medicine, I want to mention separately a spacious helicopter cockpit. This is very important for ergonomics, providing convenient access to the patient, loading and unloading.

Also, the more sparing mode of patient transportation, due to the absence of dependence on the quality of the road surface, can be attributed to the positive qualities of air-medical evacuation. The impact of airflow on modern helicopters is minimised when flying at safe altitudes. It is important that the time required for a helicopter to be transported to a specialised healthcare institution is significantly shorter than road transport, which is very important due to less negative impact due to vibrations on affected areas of the patient’s body and organs.

"2 patients are 2 times more lives saved"

Most recently, on July 25, we received an application for the evacuation of 2 children from Sergiev Posad. Brother and sister, 16 and 2 years old, as a result of a fire in the apartment received extensive shallow burns. The severity and vastness of the wounds, interpreted the need to provide highly specialised and high-tech medical care, not available in the Central District Hospital. At the same time, the great remoteness of the specialised medical institution required the involvement of ambulance helicopters.

After the pre-flight examination and preparation, the patients were taken on board, where the whole range of diagnostic and treatment measures carried out in the hospital department was continued. Thanks to the volumetric cockpit of the Ansat helicopter, it was possible to transport 2 patients simultaneously to the burn centre of the Moscow Regional Centre for Maternal and Child Welfare in Lyubertsy. Patients tolerated the flight well and no deterioration in vital signs was noted.

According to statistics from the children's burn centre located in Lyubertsy, evacuation by road in the acute period is extremely dangerous for the patient, while evacuation to helicopters increases the chance of survival.

The opinion of the pilots

According to Ansat commander Sergei Fadeev, a helicopter combines such qualities as economy, comfort, wide operational capabilities and maintainability. A helicopter of this dimension is excellent for the Moscow Region, since its operation is significantly cheaper than heavy Mi-8 helicopters, which allows medical evacuation of more people, and its dimensions allow you to take to the road or in a limited space of settlements.

“The experience that we gained while operating this helicopter in 9 different regions of the Russian Federation allowed us to make sure that the design decisions laid down by the Kazan Helicopter Plant were correct and as a result we got a good rotorcraft that was so necessary in recent years” - notes Fadeev.

Published on the website of JSC Russian Helicopter Systems.

Russian Helicopter Systems is the first and largest civil operator of Ansat helicopters. The Company’s fleet today has 13 helicopters of this type, 12 of which are equipped with a modern medical module manufactured by Kazan Aggregate Plant, as well as 1 Ansat helicopter in a VIP modification. The company also has 4 Mi-8AMT / MTV helicopters, which are also equipped with modern medical equipment. The delivery of additional batches of helicopters in 2019 is expected.