Recent Issues and Advances in Aeromedical Evacuation (MEDEVAC)

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medical squadron is very difficult to
maintain at an operational level.
EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES
Though organizing the personnel
deployment was a learning experience, the
logistics of providing the right equipment
in the right place at the right time was a
distinct challenge. Since each airevac crew
flies intermittently within Canada,
approved airevac equipment is cached at
each unit. Theoretically, it was better to
keep the equipment in the unit where it
could be used and maintained, rather than
having it stored in a medical equipment
depot where it was less easily accessible.
This proved to be a significant problem.
The units were not inclined to release their
airevac equipment to a deployment. Crew
members tasked to take their equipment
overseas with them immediately voiced
concern over how their unit would manage
domestic airevac in the interim - even if
they had not flown a mission in the past
six months! And the issue of
accountability for very expensive kit
became a significant issue which still is not
completely resolved.
As this particular obstacle had not been
anticipated, this was a "show-stopper".
The solution came more by good luck than
good management. The airevac equipment
which had been positioned in Lahr,
Germany, though all boxed up and ready to
be shipped home, was uncrated and signed
for by the first nurse to deploy to Ancona.
To my knowledge that equipment has not
been damaged or lost, despite all the dire
predictions of the account holders. The
equipment which is currently in use will be
stored in the Central Medical Equipment
2-5
Depot (CMED) upon its return to Canada
and assigned specifically to deployed
operations so that the next deployment will
be equipped more smoothly.
The re-supply planning was not difficult
once monthly flights began into the ALCE.
The CMED received the ALCE
requirements either by FAX or by phone,
and the materiel was on the return flight.
Urgently required items were couriered to
the unit or purchased locally.
This plan failed to work in only one major
facet - that of oxygen supply. The airevac
teams took with them a Flynn resuscitator,
which delivers emergency oxygen for up to
25 minutes from a small E-sized tank.
Though the flight from Sarajevo to Ancona
takes only 58 minutes, this Flynn was often
used and therefore the crew needed a
reliable supplier of medical oxygen.
Though there were suppliers available, as
recommended by the Italian Red Cross and
local hospitals, they were unable to fill our
tanks due to regulator size incompatibility.
After a futile search for a compatible
source, the crews resigned themselves to
sending tanks back to Canada for refill and
return on rotation flights. This was a very
cumbersome procedure, resulting in delays
in the replacement of this essential item.
Necessity is the mother of invention,
however, and before long a jury-rigged
adaptor provided the solution, with the two
incompatible regulators fixed to either end
of a piece of high-pressure hose. With
ingenuity, the largest problem of the early
deployment was solved.
LESSONS LEARNED
This mission has provided a unique test to