World first - Victoria's ambulance helicopters to carry life saving bloods

21 April 2011

In a world first, people seriously injured will have a greater chance of survival following a program that sees blood administered by MICA Flight Paramedics on Victoria’s ambulance helicopters.

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Video transcript

Ambulance Victoria CEO Greg Sassella

This helicopter behind me today will do around 1000 cases every year, responding primarily to trauma and time critical patients. It has a very high success rate with resuscitating patients back to good health or indeed back to life on occasions.

There are times however where despite the pharmacology and the drugs and the medical treatment and procedures that are in that helicopter and that our paramedics are trained to use, we need additional help and the additional help in this instance is blood.

This is a world first for our paramedics in Australia, to be in a primary responding helicopter carrying blood is a world first. This is a real breakthrough, we can give them whole blood, it means it carries oxygen around their bodies better, it means that their brain injuries are less, their organ injuries are less and they survive far better.

David Davis MP (Minister for Health)

This is another tool that’s in their armoury that enables them to do the job of saving more lives and getting that urgent care to people right at the scene. It’s a result of the partnerships between Ambulance Victoria and the paramedics on one hand, the Royal Melbourne and the Red Cross blood service on the other. I congratulate Ambulance Victoria, I congratulate the MICA paramedics and I look forward on behalf of the Victorian community to seeing this support delivered in a way that saves lives. 

Installation of the specially designed ‘blood shippers’ will first occur on the two Melbourne based helicopters, as well as a blood refrigerator at the base.

It will be the first time in the world helicopter paramedics will have their own supply of blood to administer to patients.

Paramedics routinely provide fluid through a drip to help stabilise injured patients, but the most effective way of treating significant blood loss is with a blood transfusion.

The blood has a shelf life of 42 days, however Ambulance Victoria will be changing it over every fortnight to ensure the freshest supplies are available to intensive care flight paramedics

The decision to have Ambulance Victoria helicopters carry blood products fulfils a 2010 coroner’s recommendation that Ambulance Victoria and the State Government implement a system to be able to provide blood services any where in the state, after the death of Cobram woman Veronica Campbell from an ectopic pregnancy.

Blood fridges will be installed in Ambulance Victoria’s helicopters based in south-west Victoria, Bendigo and the La Trobe Valley in the coming months.