Three patients airlifted amid flooded roads in North
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Three patients with heart disease had to be airlifted to hospital as the Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand (EMIT) sought to ensure they get timely efficient treatment despite blocked roads.
Severe flooding has dam?aged many roads in the country. Some of them, such as the Highway 333 in Uthai Thani, have become impassable.
Jamlong Silaloy, 69, and Yuang Pumpong, 87, had been receiving treatment for acute myocardial infarction at the Uthai Thani Hospital but their condition had not improved.
An EMIT team checked on both patients and decided it would be better to transfer them to a better-equipped hospital in Bangkok. Normally, patients can be transferred to the capi?tal via Highway 333, which is a main route in Uthai Thani. But with the highway seriously flooded, the pair needed an air?lift.
Both patients were getting treatment under the universal healthcare scheme, so the National Health Security Office (NHSO) agreed to pay for their helicopter rides.
In Uthai Thani town, flood water ranged between one and two metres deep. Outside the town, floodwater was between two and four metres deep.
In Chiang Mai, the road from Mae Sariang to Hod was also seriously flooded, which prompting the EMIT to airlift an ethnic Karen patient also with a heart problem.
Japa Japee, 45, came down with cardiac arrhythmia and doctors decided to urgently transfer him from the Omkoi district office to Nakornping Hospital. He was also getting treatment under the universal healthcare scheme.
