Unnecessary Medevacs? Post here

[chu me]

It is interesting how much time is spent complainig about " frivilous " medivacs by people who would have a hard time diagnosing the common cold. Yet not much time complaining about $400 million that Bombardier recieved from the federal government or other supposedly private companies. I wonder how many "frivilous " medivacs you could do for that kind of money???

There I'm done boys...............have at'er

[Doc]

Looking at the medevac business from a slightly different angle here. Not only have I personally flown MANY unnecessary medevacs, (missed the sked for a medical appoingment, feeling hungry, feeling sad, cut finger,..the list goes on...) but right NOW the medevac business is the most dangerous segment of aviation. This is my take on it, not backed up by any stats. I don't know if the "pressure" to get the job done is coming from the companies, the Province, or the pilots themselves....but the "pressure" to get the job done is at an all time high. I expect to see more carnage in this segment of aviation in the near future.
The limits on your approach plates are the same no matter what the mission. Don't "push" any harder for a medevac than you would for a load of pop and chips.
I'm really tired of reading the usual..."godspeed, rest in peace, condolences to the family, he died doing what he loved" CRAP as it is.........I don't want to read it about YOU because YOU descended below limits to "rescue" somebody with a hang nail!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Is "godspeed " some new V- speed, is it your final V-speed, what exactly does it mean?

[Siddley Hawker]

Is "godspeed " some new V- speed, is it your final V-speed, what exactly does it mean?

I'm thinking it's really slow, 'cause when you go really fast everything goes plaid.

[Donald]

The limits on your approach plates are the same no matter what the mission. Don't "push" any harder for a medevac than you would for a load of pop and chips.

I have always felt that I don't care what's in the back: medevac, pop and chips, executives, or nothing at all. What matters to me, is getting my butt home safely!

[Flybabe]

I agree. Unfortunately I've worked with some who would put their lives (and those of the people in the back) at risk taking unnecessary chances to get into a strip.

A medevac is not worth killing yourselves over.

[swordfish]

It's not up to us (professional pilots) to analyze and criticize the decisions of professional nurses and doctors. A medevac is requested when other locally-available options are either non-existent, impractical, too risky, or the least-desirable option.

The process is structured, and requires more than 1 person to be involved. Who are we to second-guess medical decisions of other professionals? They don't analyze and criticize our decisions, so I suggest this thread is simply shit-disturbing, and should be closed.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Swordfish are you suggesting that those who believe the system has been abused should be silenced?

[Doc]

It's not up to us (professional pilots) to analyze and criticize the decisions of professional nurses and doctors. A medevac is requested when other locally-available options are either non-existent, impractical, too risky, or the least-desirable option.

The process is structured, and requires more than 1 person to be involved. Who are we to second-guess medical decisions of other professionals? They don't analyze and criticize our decisions, so I suggest this thread is simply shit-disturbing, and should be closed.

I just hope you have the brains to do a missed approach. The people "involved" have their own self interests in mind. I'm not "second" guessing anybody.....but, I sure as hell know when a medevac is NOT called for. Do you work for medcom? Sounds like it.

Keep pushing kids....keep dying. The choice is yours. Makes me want to puke.

[Four1oh]

If you think it's bad that guys risk their lives for a medevac(frivolous or not), I've seen guys try to kill me for a load of pop and chips. Sure is easy to put it all in perspective when you consider what the mission is trying to accomplish.

[Stearman]

If it pays our bills and keeps people employed in what is already a tough business to be in, aviation. To bite the hand that may feed me and others would be foolish.

Lets not start complaining that we burn fuel and put it right in the ozone either on every flight. Maybe we should all be sitting around thinking of more ways on how we can kill this industry.

This thread is a waste of time.

[swordfish]

I'm not suggesting for a moment that anyone be "silenced"...I said: the medical personnel do a job, and so do we. We have no business deciding, pontificating, or opining whether a medivac is "warranted" or "necessary" or "not called for". They request a service; we respond.

In the same vein, the medic crew has no business deciding whether we continue a flight into poor weather, what type of approach we should fly, what altitude....hello...? We make those decisions ourselves.

Are YOU suggesting that we query the necessity for every charter or medivac trip we make?? .... "Excuse me, sir (madam). You can take the train from YUL to YYZ for a fraction of the price of a charter flight, and in just slightly longer than an airplane. On top of that, you have to arrange ground transportation at each end. Is this flight REALLY NECESSARY?"

Keep pushing kids....keep dying. The choice is yours. Makes me want to puke.

What sort of absurd drivel is that? Strain your brain for something more intelligent to say, rather than wasting your effort on that type of idiocy.

['effin hippie]

Who are we to second-guess medical decisions of other professionals? They don't analyze and criticize our decisions,

Actually, they do. All the goddamned time. If I had only one complaint about the medevac world, that would be it. I have had nurses refuse to fly because their friend in wherever told them it was snowing there, so the weather was 'too bad to go'. I have had medical staff watching my fuel gauges, telling me we didn't have enough for the flight, or that I had to switch tanks. I have had company EMT's telling the hospital what the weather was, and whether we could go or not.

It has never occurred to me to tell those in the back how to do their jobs because I know that just because I have been in proximity to them while they do their jobs, I still don't actually know SFA about it. But it drives me NUTS every time I have to smile back at some arrogant, spiteful creature from the clinic in Ft. Effing Cold who has been there for 'x' years and knows everything about flying because he/she has been in lots of small planes and who is so far past burnt-out that he/she is just a leather bag with beady eyes, while he/she lectures me on how to do MY job.
STFU and do your job, and I will be much happier doing mine....

Ahhhhh.......felt rather nice to get that off my chest....

ef

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Are YOU suggesting that we query the necessity for every charter or medivac trip we make?? ...

Don't be absurd.

What I am saying is there was misuse of medivac flights when I flew in the north.

If that has changed then it is a non issue.

If it still happens then I question those who support it to build time and bank money.

[Four1oh]

I get my information on how 'useless' a medevac was right from the nurse I was working with. I assumed nothing, questioned nothing. I get my info right from the expert in the back... and there were plenty of questionable and obviously unnecessary flights on my planes, according to the medical staff I worked with. Is that good enough for you guys?

How about the Shamattawa medevac we got called out for, another 'overdose'? We arrive and a mom and teenage daughter saunter onboard all happy and cheerful until they found out we were only taking them to YTH instead of YWG. You should have heard the howling then! Threats of being BCR'd(Band Council Resolution, for the uninitiated) if we didn't take them to YWG... threatened that they'd phone the chief about it, etc. It was pretty easy to refuse them as the plane didn't have the fuel to make YWG... LOL. Oh, and it was early december, and time for xmas shopping...

Something I've witnessed first hand, not some rumor or story floating around...

[KT111]

I worked for a Winnipeg airline that flew into northern MB a few years back. Well at the end of June at beginning of summer the Red River Ex is on. I was new with the company but I remember the pilots telling me that some people up north in the reserves would purposely start fires and then complain of smoke inhalation and have to be medevaced down to Winnipeg. They would end up going to the Ex, doing some shopping and then flying back up north on our airline with all their crap. I busted my back for weeks loading their crap onto the planes.

[Liquid Charlie]

If the perception is that there are so many unnecessary medevacs why aren't there more guys/gals leaning back and asking if the patient is stable or not and give the rest of us a break when they continue with priority unnecessarily - it is a very rare day indeed that you will hear a medivac pilot advise that it is nonpriority. What happened to good manors and airmanship When I flew the dedicated ambulance we did it all the time.

And you guys have to know that there is as much politics involved as medical status that creates a medevac flight from the north. Nurses don't want to work all day and then stay up all night caring for patients and they are concerned if something did go wrong and a medivac was not ordered they will incur major grief with the band councils. It's a very fine line they walk.

As stated before -- just drive the bus and be professional - the big picture is far to complicated for us a pilots to figure out

[frog]

Letting the pilot make some kind of medical decision would be as stupid as letting a nurse making a go no go decision regarding the weather.

[LifeJet]

If the perception is that there are so many unnecessary medevacs why aren't there more guys/gals leaning back and asking if the patient is stable or not and give the rest of us a break when they continue with priority unnecessarily - it is a very rare day indeed that you will hear a medivac pilot advise that it is nonpriority. What happened to good manors and airmanship When I flew the dedicated ambulance we did it all the time.

This really burns me about Manitoba...

Just because you've got a stretcher in the back, doesn't mean you're a "MEDEVAC."

AIM defines a MEDEVAC as:

A term used to request ATS priority handling for a medical
evacuation flight based on a medical emergency in the
transport of patients, organ donors, organs, or other urgently
needed life-saving medical material. The term is to be used
on flight plans and in radiotelephony communications if a pilot
determines that a priority is required.

While air ambulance services are required in the north on a daily basis, most of these flights constitute the transfer of stable patients, with non life/limb threatening ailments. Most of these flights, in my opinion, do NOT constitute a medical emergency...

There's no such thing as a "non priority" MEDEVAC... but because it is grossly over used and apparently misunderstood in Manitoba, ATC has created this "priority" vs. "non-priority" nonsense, which has no basis in ATC MANOPS, the AIM, or CARS. If you're not priority, you shouldn't be calling MEDEVAC to begin with.

This situation leads to Winnipeg ACC, unfortunately, treating the MEDEVAC designator as something they deal with 50 times a day, and often, to my experience, they don't read it back, and do not treat it with due urgency.

Let's be professionals, use the proper terminology, and call for priority only when it is appropriate.

[freakonature]

LifeJet, Would it not make sense to get any Medivac aircraft on the ground as quick as possible so it can stage for the next mission? Is speed not of the essence when it come's to a Medivac? Hey Frog what's up?

[Liquid Charlie]

Letting the pilot make some kind of medical decision would be as stupid as letting a nurse making a go no go decision regarding the weather.

I'm not sure if you are referring to my post but if you are you failed to read it closely -- you ask the flight nurse or doctor if the patient is stable (which 90% are) and if there is no rush you simply downgrade yourself to a non priority medevac -

[LifeJet]

LifeJet, Would it not make sense to get any Medivac aircraft on the ground as quick as possible so it can stage for the next mission? Is speed not of the essence when it come's to a Medivac? Hey Frog what's up?

I say again...

AIM defines MEDEVAC as:

A term used to request ATS priority handling for a medical
evacuation flight based on a medical emergency in the
transport of patients, organ donors, organs, or other urgently
needed life-saving medical material. The term is to be used
on flight plans and in radiotelephony communications if a pilot
determines that a priority is required.

Staging is not a medical emergency.... not a MEDEVAC.

[LifeJet]

...if there is no rush you simply downgrade yourself to a non priority medevac -

Again with the "non priority" medevac....

[sdjfkosdjf]

Hey guys... I'd hate to burst the bubble of a few companies... but the reason why every single flight is filed as a 'medevac' in their flight plan, regardless of patient condition, is because...

guess...

no NAVCAN charges!

[Sulako]

We were filed as medevac for our flights too, but used common sense - we only requested "direct the threshold at Vmo" priority when our flight medic said a patient was actually circling the drain. I heard of a few times when pilots weren't reasonable about it, but there are always a handful of muppets in any crowd situation.