October 5, 2006
Dedication Service of New Aircraft

    Seven and a half years ago, Air Ambulance Services Ltd. was started to satisfy a need of the healthcare system of The Bahamas and now has become an essential component of that system.
    When you live in an archipelagic nation, in which the financial pressures on the healthcare delivery system increases annually, a mismatch develops, between demand and resource availability.  Hospital base specialty care and life saving technologies, are confined to the major population centers, mainly New Providence and to a much lesser extent, Freeport.
    However, a need exists for the entire population of The Bahamas, to access these scarce specialty resources and life saving technologies.  So we have to make such care mobile so as to satisfy the demand for care, either by taking the essential healthcare services to the population or bringing the members of the population that need this care, to the healthcare services.
    We, our industry partners and the government, all share the commitment that no one should die in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, because of the lack of essential medical care.
    In pursuance of this commitment, our mission here at AAS Lifeflight, has become one of Hope, providing time sensitive response to illness and injuries, with quality medical personnel, equipment and supplies, that enables us to stabilize the patients where they are, provide advanced care enroute and deliver the patient to a facility, where they can receive definitive specialized, and life saving healthcare.
    Air Ambulance Services have created the link between the population and the healthcare system.  We have provided the means to bridge geography and time.  We have facilitated the Government’s mandate to provide emergency and life sustaining healthcare to all those who find themselves within our borders.
    AAS Lifeflight perform a variety of missions, most of our flights are scene responses, where we fly into the nearest airport to collect the patient.  We also perform hospital to hospital air medical transports.
    Most scene responses are for life threatening injuries, but like inter-facility transfers, are often for critical illness such as heart attacks or strokes requiring intensive care and surgical procedures, including invasive cardiac treatment, such as cardiac catheterization.  We respond to acute respiratory problems that are life threatening, spinal injuries, severe burns; pediatric and neonatal illnesses that require intensive care treatment.  We also respond to limb reattachment emergencies, organ transplants program requests and complicated high-risk pregnancies.
    Through our work, we save lives, improve patient outcomes, and reduces the cost of healthcare by minimizing the time, the critically injured and ill persons spend out of a hospital or away form appropriate medical care.
    We are an integral component of the emergency preparedness of The Bahamas and partners with NEMA, The National Emergency Management Agency, providing a valuable medical resource, transporting patients and medical staff, as well as carrying medical equipment and supplies into disasters areas.
    You have come today to join with us in commissioning our two new-dedicated fixed wing aircraft.  These are mobile emergency intensive care units, deployed at a moment’s notice, to patients, whose lives depend on rapid care and transport.
    Transport medicine is among the most complex arenas of medicine.  It is characterized by the need to provide immediate access, to time sensitive care for critically ill and injured patients, sometimes conducted in hostile environmental conditions, with limited planning time.  Therefore we at AAS Lifeflight, spare no expense to ensure that the public we serve and our crew of providers, practice in an environment that is as safe as humanly possible.  To this end we have invested millions of dollars for new aircraft equipment, with the very latest in technology that enhances its safety.    The state of the art Avionics, the TCAS; that is terrain and collision avoidance system. The TAWS; that is terrain avoidance warning systems etc…  This along with recurrent pilot training at a world-class training centers, contributes to our overall safety.  Our goals of zero accidents, zero serious injuries and zero fatalities, have been met so far, through best safety practices, safety oriented investments and financial planning, a trend we will continue.
    Our staff, thirty (30) strong, inclusive of pilots, copilots, flight physicians, flight nurses, paramedics, Emts, dispatchers, administrators and maintenance technicians, form the backbone of our organization.  Their professionalism, dedication and commitment to a common goal, adds to our posse uniqueness.   They are driven to be the best of the best by investing their time, their energy and efforts, in the pursuant of the goal.  I salute them.
    Maintaining the resources necessary to respond with an air ambulance, to an emergency, is a complex and costly undertaking.  There is a high fixed cost of maintaining the response infrastructure, in order to be ready to serve at a moment’s notice.
    Fixed wing aircraft cost millions of dollars to purchase or lease, operate, house and maintain.  Highly trained professionals available on a 24-hr/7 days per week basis, as well as the infrastructure, which governs, trains, funds, supports and link them to the EMS system, are also costly.  At present, we are not a public funded organization, although the Prime Minister may see it fit to change that today, maintaining the availability of this essential resource, inevitably translates into patient mission charges, which collectively must cover the cost.
    So as we make this sizable investment into the healthcare sector, we are satisfied we have made a significant contribution to maintaining access to the nation’s healthcare system and it is therefore essential that public policy and funding sustain such access, as a critical part of the medical and emergency preparedness safety net, in our country.
    Again I welcome you and thank you all for coming.