The Kinmen County government has obtained an annual subsidy of NT$12.6 million (US$374,109) from the central government to station an emergency medical rescue aircraft in the county, Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海) said.
The project could save lives by getting patients urgently in need of care to facilities on Taiwan proper that can provide the necessary treatment.
The county’s main healthcare facility is Kinmen Hospital. Given its status as a mid-level provider of emergency medical services, patients with acute, critical illnesses in need of urgent medical care have to be airlifted to hospitals on Taiwan proper.
At present, private airlines authorized by the Ministry of Health and Welfare are responsible for transferring patients in Kinmen with acute illnesses during the day.
If they are unable to carry out such missions at night, the Ministry of the Interior’s National Airborne Service Corps takes over the responsibility.
The five or six hours it takes for an aircraft to fly to Kinmen and pick up patients so they can be treated on Taiwan proper can be too long for people in critical conditions, so in September last year Chen requested financial support from the central government for projects to resolve the issue.
The central government’s Offshore Island Development Fund and the Ministry of Health decided to allocate NT$12.6 million per year to deploy aircraft for medical transport.
The county government said that about 80 Kinmen Hospital patients per year need to be airlifted to Taiwan proper by emergency rescue helicopters, one-third of whom are hospitalized with heart attacks.
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