Air ambulance service marks first anniversary in Cyprus

THE iMER Medical Services air ambulance has rounded up the first year of its operation in Cyprus carrying out more than 150 missions for the transfer of patients abroad and specialist doctors to the island.

On July 1, 2008, iMER launched its own air-ambulance service, employing an aircraft appropriately adjusted for medical purposes and exclusively dedicated to the needs of Cypriot patients.

“The establishment of this air shuttle was designed to transfer abroad Cypriot patients in a prompt and timely fashion. It gives us great pleasure to note that within its first year the service provided invaluable assistance to many patients,” said Antonis Kallis, iMER M.S. marketing manager.

According to iMER, transferring patients by air ambulance is a “very delicate mission” that requires specially trained crews, from pilots to doctors and paramedics. “Before a patient is taken aboard the air ambulance his state of health must be thoroughly assessed by our own doctors, and only when approval is obtained does the operation go ahead,” said Kallis.

Before the decision is taken to carry out a mission, the availability of appropriate medical facilities onboard and prevailing weather conditions are also assessed, he added.

The company decided to purchase the air ambulance after noting the need for a prompt and orderly service for the air transfer of Cypriot patients abroad.

According to Kallis, “In the course of our four-year presence in Cyprus we were many a time confronted with the difficulty of transferring our patients abroad timely, in the absence of an available air ambulance. For this reason we moved to acquire an aircraft, in collaboration with Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Hospital.”

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.