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1. Air ambulances make healthcare cheaper because more people can
access hospitals over large distances. Therefore not as many hospitals
need to be built.
Check out how hospitals in America like the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics uses their air
ambulance fleet to transport patients from more remote parts of the state and other states to their
facility. This allows a single hospital to serve far more people.
(https://www.airmedandrescue.com/story/113395/plane-added-uihc-service)
Similarly in Nigeria, we have a state of the art cancer centre at LUTH which cost over $10m to build.
Rather than building one of these in every state at a cost of $360m, air ambulances can help to convey
patients from across the country to this type of facility.
Less spending on tertiary care means more money free to spend on primary care which is the most
important component of any healthcare system.
2. Air ambulances increase quality of healthcare.
Air ambulances allow a higher volume of patients to be treated in a fewer number of specialist hospitals
which is far better for patients as evidence from medical journals from all over the world shows that 'in
order to provide complex healthcare safely, professional teams need to see sufficient volumes of
patients with a particular condition. More lives can be saved if advanced services are centralised in
more specialist hospitals.
3. Air ambulances reduce hospital bills for patients ‘Economies of scale are factors that cause the average cost of producing something to fall as the volume of its output increase’ –The Economist, 2008. Hospitals that receive higher numbers of patients can perform procedures more efficiently and reduce
cost, just like printers do. It doesn’t matter whether you are printing 100 copies or 1000 copies, the
cost is almost the same.
The savings that hospitals make by seeing lager numbers of patients for the same procedure can then be passed onto patients.
- Air ambulances help more patients to survive emergenciesWhen a patient experiences a medical emergency, every second counts. This is especially important in trauma cases such as car accidents and in medical emergencies like strokes and heart attacks.If a patient can get to an advanced, not local, hospital within one hour (called the Golden hour in medicine), the chances of survival are exponentially increased.
5. Air ambulances help avoid deaths due to poor roads/infrastructure.
Many countries, particularly developing countries like Nigeria have poor road infrastructure. Many roads are seasonal, some very difficult to drive on, others blocked by traffic jams. This issues make it
impossible for patients to reach hospital on time.
Air ambulances solve this problem.
For more information on how to fix healthcare in Nigeria please download ‘Fixing Healthcare in Nigeria FREE at (here) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fo7EfmcLeVVePml17i6grWySMNkm3BXI/view or read our other articles about air ambulances here (insert links) https://www.flyingdoctorsnigeria.com/?s=Air+Ambulance+
