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Manitoba air ambulance service acquires jet for transporting critically ill and injured patients

Manitoba’s air ambulance service has acquired a new jet on an interim basis while working on a request for proposals to select a long-term private contract, the Winnipeg Sun reported.
learjet 45xr
Manitoba’s air ambulance service has acquired a Learjet 45 jet air ambulance, similar to this plane, to provide Lifeflight, STARS and Shared Health transport flights on an interim basis while waiting to select a long-term provider of aircraft for medevac flights.

Manitoba’s air ambulance service has acquired a new jet on an interim basis while working on a request for proposals to select a long-term private contract, the Winnipeg Sun reported.

The plane is a Learjet 45 and was expected to be ready for Lifeflight service to communities more than 200 kilometres away from Winnipeg as of the last weekend of July.

“A jet aircraft for use by Manitoba’s critical care air ambulance services (including Lifeflight, STARS, and Shared Health transport teams) has now been accepted,” wrote Shared Health CEO Dr. Brock Wright in a memo obtained by the Sun, which also said that doctors have agreed to staff the flights throughout August.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen told the Sun in an email that, “the speed and longer range of the jet will enhance the service for Manitobans. Aircraft assignments will be made based on clinical priority, time sensitivity, distance and runway type.”

Lifeflight medical director Renate Singh told the Sun that doctors still had some safety concerns, since some air ambulance flights will still be made using turboprop planes.

“Our concerns are that, for the majority of our trips, we still have an aircraft that is inadequate for what we need to do for the provision of high-quality critical care and time-sensitive calls,” Singh said. “The acquisition of a jet for the service is definitely a positive step, and it’s a first step, but our woes are not going to be resolved … until we have a plan for a definitive airframe.”

The Pas NDP MLA Amanda Lathlin called for an inquest into the death of Gordon Jebb last month after he waited hours for an air ambulance to transport him to an intensive care unit in Winnipeg, where he died a few days later.

Lathlin said an inquest is needed to determine the role that privatization played in Jebb’s death and the risk posed by the provincial government’s decision to ground government-owned Citation jets and rely on Beechcraft King Air 200 planes provided by a private company for Lifeflight flights.

The provincial government announced June 6 that the Lifeflight air ambulance program would no longer be using two government-owned Citation jets as early as sometime in June. The province said this was because recruiting for highly specialized positions related to operating these jets is difficult due to the specific training and qualifications required along with significant competition from private-sector employers. The government-owned jets were used in about half of all air ambulance flights in 2018. The province announced last summer that it had issued a request for proposals (RFP) for private companies to provide air services, including air ambulance services, to the government to see if they could be provided more cost effectively or with a higher level of service.

Doctors Manitoba, the association that represents physicians in this province, sent a letter to members July 9 outlining concerns with the Beechcraft King Air 200 being used for Lifeflights on a six-month contract, the Winnipeg Free Press reported.

“The replacement plane is a considerably slower plane, meaning that physicians will experience serious delays in triaging, delivering and receiving critical care, which will have an adverse effect on patient outcomes,” wrote Doctors Manitoba president Fourie Smith, who added in a follow-up statement to media that Doctors Manitoba members are continuing to work with Lifeflight despite knowing that “they are still constrained from providing the high-quality critical care that patients need.”

Doctors had refused to board the new planes for a two-week period in late June and early July before beginning to provide services again and taking test flights and to become familiar with Beechcraft King Air 200 turboprop planes.

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