The multiple factors that diversify decision making in order to achieve Critical Care in the Air in PNG

Dr Mangu KENDINO¹, Ms  Jacquie  Hennessy

¹ST JOHN AMBULANCE PNG, PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

Abstract:

St John Ambulance Papua New Guinea, as part of our National Ambulance Service, maintains a critical care aeromedical capacity. As the medical arm of these missions, we work with a range of aviation companies providing both fixed wing and rotary aircraft. Each of these aviation companies have their own specialties, requirements and way of operating distinctive to each runway, province and climate.

Due to the unique and occasionally frustrating demands of terrain, weather, communication, airfield restrictions, time restrictions, inadequate rural health care facilities and overwhelmed staffing, the Papua New Guinean aeromedical field provides a multitude of complex factors that permeate across all aspects of the mission cycle. A lot of these demands are not unique to Papua New Guinea but are just laid bare by the raw nature of operating in an environmentally unstable location where medical provision is performed to international standards but delivered on the floor of an unpressurised Cessna on a short grass runway.

This presentation explores how each set of highlighted external factors impact on aviation asset choice, mission planning, on-the-ground medical decisions and overall patient care. Specific medevacs from the past 3 years will be as case examples to illustrate just how decisions are made relevant to the environmental and human factors and the ongoing impact that these factors have had on organisational resiliency and national standards for service provision.

Biographies:

Mangu is an Emergency Physician who enjoys both of her roles. Practicing in the country’s largest tertiary hospital emergency department and as a pre-hospital critical care physician.

The health sector in PNG is evolving and the rise of emergency care systems increases the need for a developed prehospital system. Working as the Medical Director for St John Ambulance PNG allows for Mangu’s involvement in this aspect. And it has been a rewarding journey so far to watch the growth of the St John Ambulance Aeromedical Services.