New Air Ambulances Are Taking Flight In B.C.

New air ambulances are taking flight in B.C.

“When someone you love is critically ill or injured, they deserve the best and fastest care possible,” said Premier David Eby.

“Throughout this vast province, we are building new hospitals, cancer-care clinics and urgent primary care centres. By deploying new air ambulances, we are ensuring patients get the quality care they need quickly.”

The province is introducing a new state-of-the-art fleet of air ambulance airplanes.

BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) is replacing its existing fleet with 12 new Beechcraft King Air 360CHW air ambulances.

Nine of the airplanes will be in regular operation and three will be backups.

The first of these new airplanes went into service on May 1st.

The province is spending $673 million over 10 years for the project.

Air ambulances allow patients to be treated by highly trained paramedics while they are being transported.

These airplanes are the fastest way to travel to a health-care facility, especially for patients in hard-to-reach areas.

They will be used both in emergency medical response and to transfer patients between health-care facilities.

Air ambulances will remain stationed in their current locations with three airplanes each in Vancouver and Kelowna, two in Prince George and one in Fort St. John.

In 2023-24, paramedics, dispatchers and call takers responded to 596,014 emergency medical events and completed 71,198 interfacility patient transfers throughout the province, including 8,290 patient transports involving air resources, 6,177 of which were by airplane.

Approximately 70% of calls for air ambulances use airplanes and 30% use helicopters.

To learn more, visit Government of British Columbia.