Status: 11/26/2021 3:22 p.m.
The Air Force is relocating Covid 19 patients within Germany for the first time to relieve hospitals in certain regions. In the afternoon, a special machine is to fly six seriously ill people from Bavaria to North Rhine-Westphalia.
In view of the escalating corona situation, the Bundeswehr is today helping for the first time to move intensive care patients across Germany. An Airbus A310 MedEvac is to take off from the airport near Memmingen in the afternoon to bring seriously ill people to Münster-Osnabrück airport in North Rhine-Westphalia, the air force announced. The arrival of the machine is therefore planned for the early evening.
The Bundeswehr aircraft has six intensive treatment places on board. As a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense told journalists in Berlin, this also corresponds to the number of patients who are said to be on board during the transfer flight.
Emergency plan developed early
For the first time, the Bundeswehr is helping to relieve hospitals in regions with a particularly large number of corona patients. The Air Force has two aircraft ready for the relief mission. These include the Airbus A310 MedEvac and a converted special machine, the A319OH surveillance aircraft. Two places for intensive treatment were built into this. In addition, an A400M transport aircraft is available in Wunstorf, which is equipped for medical evacuation flights.
Due to the increasing overloading of their clinics, the federal states recently activated the so-called clover leaf concept. This emergency plan had already been developed in an earlier phase of the corona pandemic: If hospitals are threatened with collapse in individual regions, Covid-19 patients can be relocated to other parts of the country, each of which is grouped into clover leaves.
Southeast particularly affected
Since Thuringia, Bavaria and Saxony in particular are affected by the fourth corona wave, more than 50 patients have to be flown out from there. Nine federal states have agreed to accept the seriously ill.
World Medical Association boss Frank Ulrich Montgomery advocated transferring patients not only within Germany, but also to clinics in other EU countries. This “systematic transfer of Covid patients abroad” must be initiated immediately in order to relieve German hospitals.