The special air ambulance flight concluded late yesterday evening with the military aircraft landing at Ciampino Airport.
A complex urgent medical transfer, carried out by the Italian Air Force for a young woman expecting twins, one of whom suffers from a serious heart condition, ended successfully late yesterday evening with the landing at the Ciampino military airport. The woman needed to be transferred as quickly as possible from the “Di Venere” hospital in Bari to the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome due to the risk of premature birth.
The urgent air transport was requested by the Local Health Authority of Bari, through the Prefecture of the Apulian capital, which was followed – after rapid coordination with the relevant health facilities – by the take-off order from the Operations Room of the Aerospace Operations Command at Poggio Renatico (Ferrara) to one of the crews of the 46th Air Brigade, always ready for take-off for this type of intervention.
The aircraft, which departed from the home base in Pisa, then headed to Bari, where it embarked the ambulance with the woman on board for transfer to Rome. As mentioned, she was expected there for admission and the necessary specialist treatment at the Gemelli Polyclinic. This particular type of medical transport enabled the patient transfer times to be minimised, whilst ensuring constant monitoring and medical assistance.
Air Force crews and transport aircraft are ready every single day of the year, 24 hours a day, to ensure, when required and deemed necessary for urgent reasons, the medical transport of people whose lives are in imminent danger, organs or medical teams, or as in this case, people in need of transfer to specialised treatment centres throughout Italy. Hundreds of flight hours are flown each year for this type of intervention by the aircraft of the 31st Wing at Ciampino, the 14th Wing at Pratica di Mare and the 46th Airborne Brigade at Pisa, as was the case with this mission. The aircraft of the Pisa Air Brigade are the only ones, in particular, that can guarantee this type of transport, which also includes the embarkation of an ambulance. This is an essential capability when the patient's condition requires constant medical assistance and very short transfer times, a capability that the Air Force and Defence made available to the country extensively during the Covid emergency for bio-containment air transport.
