The province’s air-ambulance program will continue to provide reliable care to critically ill and injured Manitobans with a $6-million investment in a replacement Lifeflight jet, Health Minister Theresa Oswald and Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton announced.
“This investment ensures that our Lifeflight program will continue to provide life-saving support and transportation to Manitobans when they need it most,” said Oswald. “The new air ambulance builds on our commitment to improving emergency medical care for all Manitobans, regardless of where they live, while supporting the front-line medical staff who provide these critical services.”
Manitoba has purchased a used Citation C-560 jet aircraft to replace an older jet in the Lifeflight program. The aircraft is currently going through final modifications to ensure it will offer safe transportation for medical first responders and their patients and is expected to be in service later this spring.
“Our province continues to support critical infrastructure projects that improve the daily lives of Manitobans,” said Ashton. “This jet is another example of a cost-effective and strategic investment that will benefit critically-ill people, their families and communities for years to come.”
Lifeflight jets have a number of features which make them ideal for transporting the most critically ill patients including:
• a wide door and interior that accommodate equipment and staff so that medical care can continue during transport;
• modifications that allow the jets to land on gravel airport runways, allowing them to access more than 50 additional communities across the province, many in northern and remote areas;
• state-of-the-art avionics and aircraft systems; and
• a new aeromedical cabin design that allows Lifeflight to provide critical care in the air.
Every year, Lifeflight jets transport about 600 critically ill Manitobans while providing on-board medical support. The Lifeflight program transports patients from isolated rural hospitals and nursing stations to care centres in Winnipeg. A group of critical-care physicians, emergency physicians and obstetricians provides 24-hour medical coverage for the program.
Flight nurses with advanced training and extensive critical-care experience take care of patients before the flight and provide care throughout the trip. In addition, the flight crews, maintenance staff and administrative support staff also play crucial roles in providing the Lifeflight program. The Lifeflight program provides more specialized and urgent medical care than what is provided through the medevac program, which is generally used to transport stable patients, Oswald noted.
Other recent investments in emergency medical services include:
• $10 million to purchase 39 new and replacement road ambulances for communities across the province, permanently hire additional paramedics provincewide and partner with Red River College to deliver a primary-care paramedic program at the college’s main campus and at three rural and northern sites;
• approximately $13.2 million to construct or upgrade emergency medical stations in Gypsumville, Lundar, Ashern, Selkirk, West St. Paul, Morden/Winkler, Swan River, Dauphin, Minnedosa, Rivers, Ste. Anne, The Pas, Selkirk, Arborg and Gimli;
• $7.8 million to develop the Medical Transportation Co-ordination Centre in Brandon, the dedicated centre for the dispatch of all rural and northern medical services including inter-facility transfers; and
• an estimated $7 million each year to fund the full patient cost of inter-facility transports.
