Community Need
While Bermuda is locally served by the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEMH), approximately 200 patients require emergency specialist care from overseas medical and trauma centres each year. When a patient’s condition is life-threatening, time is always of critical importance.
Bermuda is approximately two hours from major US east coast cities via air, which makes these destinations suitable for emergency medical transfer. Without a dedicated on-island air ambulance, however, emergency evacuation had been taking up to 72 hours. By eliminating time spent sourcing, contracting, negotiating and waiting for a medical jet to arrive from the US, Bermuda Air Ambulance provides a target delivery of only three to four hours to US east coast specialist hospitals.
Bermuda Air Ambulance reduces mortality rates and enhances timely patient recovery. Patients receive faster specialist care for acute life-threatening or debilitating injuries such as stroke, heart attack, neonatal cases and major trauma.
As a volunteer paramedic, I witnessed a stroke patient wait over 24 hours for transport, resulting in permanent brain damage. This was not a unique case, but a known gap in Bermuda’s health care capability, which Bermuda Air Ambulance is now able to fill.
My friend waited 16 hours for an air ambulance to be positioned from the US for specialist brain care. Bermuda Air Ambulance eliminates this wait so people can receive the care they so urgently need.
Learn more about Bermuda’s most frequented North American hospitals
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
An international leader in virtually every area of medicine and has been the site of pioneering breakthroughs that have improved numerous lives.
Lahey Hospital & Medical Center
Primarily a teaching hospital with an existing strong relationship to KEMH in Bermuda.
Massachusetts General Hospital
A 999-bed general medical and surgical facility with 48,587 admissions in the most recent year reported. Mass General Hospital is a Level 1 trauma centre which is ranked nationally in 16 adult and 3 paediatric specialties.
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Located in Baltimore with 33 state-of-the-art operating rooms: 14 neurosurgery/general surgery, 10 paediatric, 6 cardiac, and 3 obstetric. It provides exclusively a high-quality level of service and innovation.
R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center
at the University of Maryland
One of the oldest academic medical centres in the United States. Located on the West Side of Downtown Baltimore, the integrated trauma hospital is distinguished by discovery-driven tertiary and quaternary care for the entire state and region and innovative, highly specialised clinical programmes.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital
With about 2,600 beds and more than 6,500 affiliated physicians and 20,000 employees, New York-Presbyterian sees more than 2 million visits annually, including close to 15,000 infant deliveries and more than 310,000 emergency department visits. New York-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked #1 in the New York metropolitan area by U.S. News and World Report and repeatedly named to the Honour Roll of “America’s Best Hospitals”.
Toronto Children’s Hospital
The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), affiliated with the University of Toronto, is Canada’s most research-intensive hospital and the largest centre dedicated to improving children’s health in the country. Its staff includes professionals from all disciplines of health care and research.
Other Hospitals
Other Hospitals. Patients are also flown from Bermuda to destinations such as Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco, Dallas and other metropolitan centres.