Air ambulance service launched in Cyprus Planes equipped as an intensive care unit connect the island to medical centres around the world

AIR AMBULANCES were launched in Cyprus yesterday, linking the island to a series of specialised medical centres abroad.

The first service of its kind on the island, it is being operated by iMER (International Medical Evaluation and Referral) and the Hadassah Academic Medical Centre of Jerusalem.

The Air Ambulance service is operated by jet and turboprop airplanes that are licensed and equipped to fly as intensive care units. They are exclusively for use by patients from Cyprus and allow the transfer of patients from Larnaca airport to the Hadassah Centre in Jerusalem in less than three hours.

The service can be used also for the fast transport of organs for transplants, as well as for the transport of doctors in cases of medical emergency. The service launched yesterday covers the Jerusalem-Larnaca-Athens route, however patients can be taken anywhere in the world via iMER’s network.

“Unfortunately we faced many cases in the past where we could not help in time to save the life of a Cypriot because the air-ambulance service was not available… In some of these cases the patient should have been transported to a specialised medical centre for treatment, which could have saved their life or transported a specialised doctor or equipment to Cyprus for the support of a local medical team,” commented Professor David Linton of the Intensive Care Unit at the Hadassah Hospital. “After more than 30 years experience in the international medical sector of intensive care and as a professional pilot of an air-ambulance I feel like a dream is becoming reality”.

“iMER commits to offer the Cypriot patient the best available medical care in the wider region, impressively upgrading the factor of availability of transport means. As always, our priority is the patient. This helps us in our effort to be always ready to offer our medical experience and technology, anywhere in the world where this is possible or in the case of emergency to transport the patient anywhere we have to in the fastest possible way,” added George Georgiou, one of the founders of iMER Cyprus.

They aircraft can provide an ICU-to-ICU transport service with continuous medical intensive care expertise during the flight. They provide continuous patient monitoring including EKG, non-invasive blood pressure, pulse oximetry and capnography.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.