AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Belize Life News Child dead at childbirth: lack of Health Facility

Yes, and a helicopter is the much preferred type of aircraft in my view as they, in most cases, eliminate the need for a ground ambulance and can deliver the patient directly to the hospital facility. Further, establishing one or more helipads on the island could help in the event that someone is far from San Pedro and the air strip. I know there is at least one helipad up North here as I have used it and there are probably more.

I am against virtually any kind of tax and government involvement but this may be one time that a permanent fund could be set up and funded with donations and that fund tapped to pay for transport for those that cannot afford it. Donations could be made all through the year and not just when someone needed to be transported. This could also possibly serve other medically indigent persons.

Using Astrum will not work. They are based in Belize City. It would take too long to get into operation in the event of an emergency.
It makes more sense to have a small fixed wing aircraft based on the island to fly a patient to Belize City.
The bigger problem is the initial emergency response personnel for the island. Island Ferry had a team of responders for a while when they were in business. I donated a lot of medical supplies to them.
I think a group of the local doctors, nurses and visiting medical pros (there are many winter residents that are in the business) should assemble in the case of an emergency.
That would just take some supplies, a few cell phones and a transportation system. A local doctor should oversee it also to develop a few protocols.
The group should also help train island residents in first aid.
It's a pretty simple fix with a few complex issues to overcome. IMHO

Full-heartedly agree with the Helo. A helipad (LZ) is easy to create - trained EMS/FD do this all the time and in a place like Ambergris Caye is would be easy to define accessible areas - pre-defined LZs if you will - in an EMS plan.
However, there is still the necessity to stabilize the patient, transport same from the scene to the LZ, and ensure they are ready for the flight. Please do not discount the value added added to EM services. In my view, they are a priori service to any medical system.
As for the budgeting...tough call. A tax on visitors? A tax through businesses? Voluntary donations? I have lived in places where one or more of these have been in effect.

In my humble opinion the flight time to the island by helicopter is not a such a big deal. It would probably take that long to get the patient and crew ready and as I said it will do no good to get them to the international airport and then take another 25 or 30 minutes getting them to the hospital. There is always a delay when you change transportation methods which also adds to the time.
Plus perhaps there are light on the runway here but I haven't seen them and landing at municipal in the dark would in my view be pretty dangerous. All of this really doesn't matter though if we don't have things organized on the island first.
We started a similar thread over a year ago and although there was a lot of talk and we even had at least one meeting it never went anywhere.
The Astrum approach is pretty easy to get started and most helicopters can be outfitted pretty quickly to carry a patient.

I would form a small committee, identify your needs, make an appointment with Dr Peter Allen, CEO in the Ministry of Health and get direction from an expert in health care in Belize on how to move forward and provide solutions for people on the caye. And talk to Belize Medical Associates and Belize Health Care Partners and let them know its time to expand on the caye. Put a bug in their ears.

In essence (albeit with more detail) what I recommended to Mike Campbell. He's running for office? Geesch...

Municipal is supposed to be getting a make over. I think it includes runway lighting. "Cracked up" would know.

By the time Gustavo (Astrum's CEO/pilot) got a call, left his house and drove to the hangar, rolled the helo out and fired up to fly out would be a while.

Tropic and Maya Island have Airvans and Islanders with pilots close by.

So sad, but true.

I have worked for many years in San Pedro as an RN/midwife. The biggest problem we have is not having a central location for emergencies to be taken to and treated where trained staff are in attendance. Much time is wasted looking around trying to find a doctor or nurse or waiting for someone to arrive at a clinic to give treatment. If everyone knew where to take an emergency, it would save much time.If a nurse or paramedic where there 24 hours able to provide emergency treatment while getting a doctor on call it would save time and lives. There are many first aiders on the island, all tour guides have to have first aid certificates. The island is very small,it just takes a few minutes to get anywhere on the island, the problem is NOT how to transport the patient to a location on the island, the problem is not having a location open to take them to. Not all emergencies would have to be evacuated in the middle of the night at great cost, only the more serious life threatening ones. Having anything other than a 24 hour unit (which I call an ER)to take them to and to keep them in for observation if not evacuating immediately seems useless and not providing a necessary service.I was not involved in the recent tragic situation,I don't know why it took three hours to arrange a flight for the lady needing an evacuation but I suspect much time was lost finding a doctor to evaluate her condition.
A helicopter on call or stationed on the island would be ideal, but not financially practical. People cannot afford the charter of a small plane and a helicopter is much more expensive.We have the planes here. They do land at Municpal at night, it just takes a 15 minute flight.It doesn't take long to arrange it. However, it does cost money.

I'm a small town doctor who still practices OB including c/s deliveries. I came to my home town 12 years ago and restarted the OB program here. I practiced by myself for 10 years before other OB providers came here.

I said all that to say this, including operative OB services is not that dificult. Spinal anesthesia is prefered and easily done by any doctor or trained NP. A blood bank is not needed. I can count on one hand the number of times I've needed blood for an OB patient and I've delivered over 2,500 babies. It's much easier to bring blood to the patient rather than bring the patient to the blood on the rare occasions the blood will be needed.

I volunteer my time to come train providers that are on the island who want to be trained in surgical OB. Message board locals may offer my assistance to Mr. Heredia(sp?) or anyone with the authority to get the ball rolling with surgical OB on the island.

As already stated this is not a new topic and has been discussed at length here before with lots of providers volunteering to come assist with emergency training. If a local could take charge and organize this effort I feel that there are reasonable options the island could put into effect immediately. Medical evacuation is far too time consuming and will result in loss of lives. An emergency surgical room to me is a must for the island and shouldn't be very difficult to establish.

I'm available immediately to come help set up and train the local providers in surgical OB care if needed.