Thursday, November 25, 2021
With “flying intensive care unit”
Bundeswehr relocates corona patients for the first time
From Friday onwards, the Air Force will also help to fly intensive care patients to other clinics with free capacities. The first air transport is to go from the Bavarian airport Memmingen to North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Bundeswehr is preparing to start air force flights to relocate intensive care patients in the corona pandemic from Friday. According to information from the German Press Agency, plans are on the table that provide for air transport from the Bavarian airport of Memmingen to North Rhine-Westphalia. A landing at Münster-Osnabrück Airport is planned.
Fast transport capacities with airplanes are to be used in order to be able to fly intensive care patients to regions with free capacities in the event of regional congestion in hospitals. The final decision on the details of the deployment of the Air Force will not be made until Friday.
The Luftwaffe has two aircraft ready for aid in Cologne. This includes the Airbus A310 MedEvac, a “flying intensive care unit” with six of these treatment places, as well as a converted special machine, the surveillance aircraft A319OH (“open sky”). Two places for intensive treatment were built into this. An A400M MedEvac is also stationed in Wunstorf in Lower Saxony.
As part of the so-called clover leaf system, Covid 19 patients should also be able to be distributed nationwide if hospitals are threatened with collapse in individual regions. According to a catalog of criteria of the intensive care medicine association Divi, a transfer of patients with other illnesses is only planned in exceptional cases. The concept was launched in spring 2020 under the impression of the first corona wave.