Author of “Why Hospitals Should Fly,” Nance is an aviation analyst for ABC world News, and a San Juan resident.
San Juan EMS Chief Jim Cole's statement flies in the face of the reality in the Sounder’s story “Airlift Northwest cuts ties with Island Air Ambulance” that ran last week.
Neither he nor Larry Wall nor anyone else
associated with Island EMS is making decisions “... on the basis of
what’s best for the patient...” when a patient is pushed into an
inferior form of emergency transport involving two ambulances and a
fixed wing aircraft versus transport directly to the helipad of a
hospital.
Here’s a real fact: There is an obvious
and provable bias in the decisions that have been and are being made on a
daily basis by Chief Cole and others in San Juan EMS to shunt San Juan
County residents off to Island Air’s structurally inferior air
transportation services. At times, Airlift Northwest has been told to
turn back because EMS officials have decreed that a transportee will use
Island Air instead, and at other times people have been told that
Airlift was not available when the record indicates they indeed were.
No one is impugning the safety dedication
of Island Air Ambulance or the services of Island Air Inc. that they
utilize, but those services are seriously inferior to Airlift in every
significant way, in particular: One available non-pressurized,
non-de-iced, Cessna 207, which means a single-engine, fixed wing
aircraft flying over very cold waters, airport to airport rather than
Airlift's top-of-the-line transportation directly to the hospital
attended by two highly trained nurses (versus one). There is no
comparison.
Island Air Ambulance is a useful
emergency backup, but never should be the primary means of emergency
medical evacuation when Airlift's superior capabilities are available.
But the questions here revolve around the massive shunting of emergency
airlifts to Island Air over the past year and the self-congratulatory
empire building that is going on at county expense to build up this
fixed wing service and fraudulently bill it as an equivalent.
Why, for instance, has there been a heavy
weight bias toward Island Air and a partial sandbagging of Airlift? Is
the motivation monetary? Have island residents been fully informed that
Island Air Ambulance bills insurance companies the same amount (around
$12,000, and in some cases more) than the charges Airlift bills?
Where, exactly, is that money going? Why
have scarce San Juan County funds been squandered to create an inferior
parallel service now being touted by one official, Larry Wall, as equal
when under no circumstances is that correct? (Wall's two recent
advertisements passing as OpEds in the Journal clearly show a propensity
for massive misrepresentation of the quality and nature of the services
provided, but do nothing to explain why public funds are being poured
into this parallel service).
Some very serious questions of propriety and legitimacy are now being raised and must be answered publicly and fully.
If this were a battle between two
profit-making companies, no such questions would be appropriate. But
this involves a vital public utility class service, and continuation of
this bias at the cost of millions in county funds raises the possibility
that Airlift's services, if too little used, may have to be truncated
with respect to the Bellingham helicopter base, which would immediately
add life-losing time to an emergency transport.
I, for one, absolutely refuse to use
anyone but Airlift for myself or my family, and am highly suspicious of
what has been “built” here and why.
Author of “Why Hospitals Should Fly,” Nance is an aviation analyst for ABC world News, and a San Juan resident.
Source: http://www.islandssounder.com/opinion
Source: http://www.islandssounder.com/opinion
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