The Sunday Business Post
DUBLIN —Ireland’s first air ambulance service has taken to the skies, and has already flown patients from Gran Canaria and Spain back to Irish hospitals.
Aeromedevac Ireland was founded by Dr Tony Walsh and Dr David Walsh, both of the Sims Clinic, together with Keith Trower, former director of Manage Care, a public-private partnership healthcare firm with Axa.
Over 1 million has been invested in the venture, including Enterprise Ireland funding, and the purchase of a Cessna Citation II fully equipped air ambulance that can carry up to eight people.
The company has to date been approved by seven international assistance companies, which means they have joined the selection panel of services that may be used in the event of a repatriation.
It has also sealed a deal with Medicall, the private ambulance service that enables transportation of patients from any Irish airport to the nearest local hospital. Aeromedevac’s air ambulance will be based at Weston in west Dublin.
The company currently employs four staff, including a fulltime pilot and flight nurse, and hopes to increase this number to ten within 18 months. It also has a standby panel of 15 doctors and nurses who are trained for air transport medical assistance.
Chief executive Keith Trower said the service was a ''clinically driven’’ one, with a view to the provision of repatriation services across Europe.
''We are on the panel for approved services for VHI and are currently undergoing approval from the HSE and Aviva,” he said. ''We basically move ill or injured people from one destination to another so they can receive better care. Until we arrived on the scene, the service here was being provided by companies based in Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands.
''A group of us came together to start an Irish service. Tony [Walsh] had already been involved with tissue transfers and, in my former role at Manage Care, we oversaw the repatriation of 200 patients per year.
Enterprise Ireland has recognised Aeromedevac as a high potential start-up, and our aim is to create more jobs. We hope to end up doing 50 per cent of medical repatriations in and out of Ireland. This would enable us to expand further with a second air ambulance in the future.”
The company has also consulted with the Intensive Care Society of Ireland and other Irish medical bodies.
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