Kazakhstan’s Aviation Administration to assist in medical aviation development
The Center’s work aims to improve the quality and accessibility of emergency medical care using air transport for the population of Kazakhstan. The air ambulance task is to provide emergency medical care to a patient, deliver a qualified specialist to the destination, or transport a patient to an appropriate medical organization.
Today, nine domestic small aviation airlines provide medical aviation services and provide 36 aircraft. The use of aircraft with different flight characteristics in medical aviation ensures coverage of remote settlements, taking into account the state of the airfield infrastructure, geographical and climatic conditions, and provides fairly efficient use of the allocated financial resources when flying in regions, between regional centers, foreign flights, at the same time, medical aviation flights are probabilistic. The National Coordination Center for Emergency Medicine engages specialized and specially trained aircraft on a contractual basis. In 2020, based on the Center, 2,185 flights were made, medical care was provided to 2,602 patients, the total flight hours amounted to 8,405 hours. The Center attracts small aircraft such as An-2, An-24, Yak-40 and specialized helicopters of the EC-145 type.
During the meeting, problematic issues of updating the aircraft fleet, modernizing aircraft, expanding the use of medical modules on aircraft, lack of control over aircraft during flight, as well as lack of information on the analysis of aviation incidents were considered.
Over the past four years, medical aviation recorded 20 incidents related to aviation activities, 1 of which was a fatal plane crash, 2 – emergencies, 9 – emergency landings, 5 – aircraft returns related to technical problems, 3 – related to unfavourable conditions on board the aircraft.
The Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan will continue to work on assessing the possibility of using more modern aircraft to support regional and interregional flights in medical aviation, restrictions on the use of aircraft with a certain amount of service life, as well as the prospects for expanding the airfield network in the system of local airlines.
Following the meeting, the parties agreed to establish cooperation and strengthen joint work to improve airlines’ control in matters of flight safety and improve the quality of aviation services. In the near future, a Memorandum of Cooperation will be signed between the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan and the National Coordination Center for Emergency Medicine.
