Castilla-La Mancha: Benchmark for medical air transport

Three new heliports will be added to the regional network

The Government of Castilla-La Mancha put out a call on 10 June for the construction of three new heliports to be used by medical emergency services. This news only affirms the leading status of the Spanish region, in terms of provision of that kind of sophisticated service, on a European scale. The new heliports will be located in the towns of Campillo de Ranas (Guadalajara Province), Espinoso del Rey (Toledo Province) and Viveros (Albacete Province).

24 hours, 7 days a week an aircraft is ready to take off to the rescue

The new medical air transport infrastructures will be equipped with the maximum security measures required by the Spanish Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) for use by medical helicopters.

Thus, they will have a landing and take-off runway built on concrete and asphalt agglomerate pavements. These will also be marked and illuminated for night use and equipped with a visual indicator of the direction and speed of the wind.

There will be an automatic weather station that sends information every ten minutes to the 112 coordination centre on temperature, wind intensity, wind direction, atmospheric pressure, air humidity, visibility and rainfall.

Likewise, there will be video and sound cameras that will allow 112 operators and the pilot to see the conditions of the heliport in real time. All this equipment will be managed from the 112 centres through a telephone connection, or from the helicopter itself through the radio equipment.

In addition to its use by emergency medical helicopters, this type of infrastructure can be used by aircraft from any other public institution and health services from other autonomous regions in cases of need.

Castilla-La Mancha’s medical air transport network is made up of 216 exclusively sanitary heliports and helipads, to which one must also add 17 aerodromes and forest heliports, which can also be used for sanitary services. The three new ones that have now been tendered will soon be joined by two more in the towns of San Lorenzo de Calatrava and Bolaños de Calatrava, in the province of Ciudad Real.

The regional air medical service is characterized by having enabled uninterrupted readiness 24 hours a day throughout the region. To guarantee this operation, it was deemed necessary to have heliports and contact points distributed throughout the territory with the aim of minimizing transfer time for critical patients.