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Flying with medical needs – in safe hands with Jet Companion

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At Jet Companionโ€™s office in Canada, one PAโ€™s dilemma in particular sounds very familiar: “We are booking an international trip for a client, with severe health issues. He doesnโ€™t need an air ambulance, but he definitely can’t fly alone with his medical needs!โ€

As a provider of travel companions for hire and low-complexity aeromedical care, we are often able to take the stress out of the situation. Our so called โ€œcommercial medical escortsโ€ are in fact professional flight nurses. They are trained to care for individuals onboard commercial flights and private charters.

Whether these passengers are considered โ€œFit to Flyโ€, or denied boarding, often depends on this type of arrangement.

Medical emergency

Thirty times a day, somewhere in the world, an in-flight medical emergency is declared. Itโ€™s not surprising as more travellers are 80+ or have serious pre-existing conditions like dementia or cancer.

There are also more ultra-long-haul flights. Nevertheless, many of these high-risk travellers will arrive at the airport unprepared. Preparing can be as simple as having a trained set of eyes onboard who is able to recognize small issues, before they ever escalate. It buys you the best chance of a seamless trip even when you are flying with medical needs.

Variety of care needs

We see travellers with a broad range of conditions ranging from permanent disability after a stroke, or severe anxiety after a mental health crisis, or people who suffered a complication after surgery overseas. Some missions are time sensitive. Others are planned well in advance, like in the case of an elderly expat who is transferred to a long term care facility, closer to family.

The degree of assistance can vary. When we say that we specialize in low-complexity medical travel, we mean that we transport people who are capable of flying safely on a commercial aircraft if we manage for example their incontinence, or their dementia. For these cases we donโ€™t need to send an ICU-nurse with critical care gear. That also greatly reduces the cost of a mission. We are however licensed professionals, practicing to our full scope. So things like in-flight oxygen, symptom relief drugs and a stretcher onboard a commercial plane, can be easily arranged. People who were previously considered too sick to travel to a wellness retreat or a specialized treatment centre, now have more options.

Wing-to-wing, bed-to-bed

No two missions are the same. Airport-to-airport transfers are common, for example in the case of a young adult who is brought to an addiction treatment centre overseas. Our nurse meets the family at check-in, and at the final destination someone else will be waiting. Later that week, that same nurse will take a cab and travel 300 kilometres across an international border to pick up an elderly client in a nursing home. Together theyโ€™ll travel 300 kilometres back to the airport in an ambulance, before boarding a transpacific flight. Around the same time, but in a different continent, one of our nurses will be doing a wing-to-wing transfer ofย  a patient who is arriving on a private jet, and leaving on a commercial flight an hour later.

 

Rudy de Kort, is a flight nurse and the founder of Jet Companion, a Canadian provider of professional travel companions and commercial medical escorts. His team flies worldwide.

Contact Jet Companion at operations@jet-companion.com for a quote for your mission.

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