One hour after its presentation, the third medicalized helicopter of the Canarian Emergency Service (SUC), dependent on the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, based in Fuerteventura performed its first service transferring a patient from the south of the island. Meanwhile, Lanzarote still does not have a medicalized helicopter that is based on the island.
At 10:15 hours, the SUC health coordinator received a call from a medical center in Jandía requesting the transfer of a 68-year-old male to the Fuerteventura General Hospital, due to a health problem that required urgent specialized medical assistance.
Given that the SUC medicalized ambulance based in the south of the island was at that moment transporting another seriously affected person to the hospital, the SUC coordinating nurse who was managing the service from the emergency room decided to activate the medicalized helicopter based at Fuerteventura Airport. This is the third helicopter incorporated after the new contract and that will provide coverage to all the islands, just like those based in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, providing special support to the islands of the eastern province due to their strategic location.
The aeronautical crew -commander and co-pilot- and the healthcare crew -which on the first flight was made up of the doctor and SUC coordination manager in Las Palmas, Noelia Almeida, and the nurse and SUC resource manager in Las Palmas, Carlos Quintana-, still at the hospital after the presentation of the SUC's new helicopter service, headed to the aircraft after receiving the alert from the healthcare coordinator to provide in-flight medical assistance and evacuate the affected person to the hospital, where they were admitted stable within the severity.
The second service in El Hierro
At night, the SUC medicalized helicopter based in Fuerteventura was activated again at 21:00 hours. On this occasion, the healthcare crew was made up of the doctor, Javier Ruiz and the nurse Laura Saavedra, who, along with 14 more healthcare professionals from the General Hospital of Fuerteventura, will work in this medicalized resource.
The sanitary aircraft carried out the transfer of a patient in serious condition from the Hospital Nuestra Señora de Los Reyes, in El Hierro, to the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, in Tenerife.
The SUC's medicalized helicopters are mobilized for assistance and transfer between hospitals of different levels for patients requiring specialized care due to serious pathologies or injuries derived from accidents, as well as for urgent evacuations from remote or difficult-to-access areas to health centers.
It is an essential air resource for urgent out-of-hospital care in the archipelago, due to territorial fragmentation, which operates 365 days a year. The three aircraft are activated by the health coordinators of the Canarian Emergency Service from the emergency room based on needs and regardless of the island where they are based -Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Fuerteventura-, following criteria of availability and response time.
