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Abstract
Nurses in the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service (PMRAFNS) undertake a variety of different roles in providing nursing care to Armed Forces personnel wherever they may serve. One such role is the evacuation by air of sick or injured personnel. This article discusses the experience of a nurse lecturer in the PMRAFNS who undertook the role of aeromedical evacuation liaison officer in the Balkans for a 4-month period during winter. The role is described and details of how the aeromedical evacuation of patients was organized is presented. The benefits of evacuating patients by air are discussed along with some of the potential problems that were encountered in the Balkans, including logistical problems and the vagaries of the weather. Finally, several examples of the types of patients evacuated are presented.
Key words: * Inflight nursing * Military nursing
It was Christmas day and it was snowing. The temperature was minus 20 degrees centigrade and I was in a multinational military medical facility in the mountains in the central region of the Balkans. I was arranging the emergency transfer by helicopter of a seriously injured man to a university hospital 40 miles away. So what was I, a nurse lecturer in the Royal Air Force, doing in the mountains in the middle of the Balkans and a long way from teaching in a classroom back in the UK?
I have been a nurse in the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service (PMRAFNS) since June 1985. The role of the PMRAFNS is to ensure that Armed Forces personnel, and others involved in war or operational conflict, receive the highest standard of nursing care available (PMRAFNS, 2002). I have undertaken a variety of roles related to this during my service career. One such role is aeromedical evacuation, i.e. the movement by air of patients under medical supervision to and between medical treatment facilities (Royal Air Force, 2001).
Aeromedical evacuation liaison officer
PMRAFNS nurses are trained to care for patients being evacuated by air and one important role some nurses undertake is aeromedical evacuation liaison officer (AELO). This was a role I was fulfilling in the Balkans as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) International Stabilization Force. For a 4-month period over winter,...