Plans are in place to keep ambulance and helicopter crews safe should they be required to transport to hospital patients seriously ill with Covid-19.
The Otago Rescue Helicopter Trust already has procedures and equipment for transporting patients with contagious diseases, but chief pilot Graeme Gale hopes they will not be needed.
Mr Gale said this week it seemed likely Covid-19 cases would be detected before they became serious and would be transported to hospital by road.
"We have got things in place if we do have to transport patients, but I think it’s highly unlikely in the early stages of being diagnosed that we would actually be involved in doing the transportation.
"It would be more likely a road-based vehicle, because it won’t be a time-critical transportation unless it was an intensive care level retrieval."
He expected the most likely scenario where a Covid-19 patient was transported by helicopter was if someone carrying the virus was involved in a car crash.
There was a high level of awareness of the issue among helicopter crews, he said.
"We can’t afford to take an aircraft out of service for a long period of time to decontaminate it, or have our staff exposed to it.
"It’s something we are taking very seriously."
Helicopters were "treated like an ambulance" and decontaminated after flights, Mr Gale said.
"Hygiene is a big thing for us in the helicopter, anyway, because we carry ... different types of patients."
St John’s director of operations Dan Ohs said his organisation had a "comprehensive action plan" to deal with an outbreak of Covid-19.
"As an essential emergency service, St John is well adept to face a pandemic."
Mr Ohs said when attending patients with suspected Covid-19, frontline staff would follow clinical procedure guidelines, including wearing personal protective equipment.
"All St John operational staff are trained in infection control practice.
"Where the clinical evidence suggests a heightened level of infection control is necessary when attending infected Covid-19 patients, fresh guidelines will be issued by our medical director."
Mr Ohs said St John frequently dealt with diseases that were "significantly more infectious than coronavirus is thought to be", such as measles, whooping cough, rotavirus, mumps and chickenpox.
