India's state-of-the-art air ambulance

New Delhi: India's first state-of-the art Air Ambulance, Flying Doctors India, was today launched in the national capital.

The new aircraft is tailor-made and equipped with a state-of-the-art Intensive Care Unit on a dedicated chartered aircraft. The goal is to provide critical care even when a patient is in transit. The air ambulance is being run by the same team of doctors who flew the Delhi gangrape victim to Singapore in December and brought back VC Shukla from Chhattisgarh last month.

"Earlier whenever we got a call, we would take a private aircraft, tape off the chairs and fit our equipment in. It was basically a 'jugaad' (temporary fix) of sorts. Now we have a dedicated air-ambulance ready for all emergency services," Dr Naresh Trehan of Medanta Medicity told NDTV.

With the air ambulance, flying doctors has taken a leap. The response time now is just 20 to a maximum of 90 minutes. Doctors say earlier it would take three hours just to prepare the aircraft.

Another timesaver is the aircraft's longer endurance level of upto seven-and-a-half hours unlike earlier when the aircraft would have to stop after 3 hours for refueling.

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"This could perhaps mean a matter of life or death for a patient," Dr Trehan says.

However, Dr Trehan says hiring the aircraft it still not cheap. It can cost at least Rs 50,000 per hour

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The aircraft can cater to patients even in smaller cities with the air ambulance having rough field capability which means it can land even on unprepared air strips.