NORTHLAND ICU FLIGHT TEAM
Two Northland ICU Flight Team members accompany all critically ill and injured adults and children who are flown around the region in Helimed One or Helimed Two.
The team is made up of eight experienced critical care Flight Nurses and three doctors who are usually Registrars undertaking training in ICU at Whangarei Hospital. In addition the Paediatric Department contribute staff to the team when required for very sick infants and children and the ICU Specialists occasionally fly with particularly complex cases.
The regular nursing team is led by ICU Clinical Nurse Manager, Sarah Pickery. (See photo) As well as running the ICU nursing team, Sarah oversees the day to day running of the Northland ICU Flight Team and ensures that all staff involved meet or exceed the Flight Standards for our Service.
The Flight Nurses are Nina Gresswell, Sally Purves, Caroline Wilson, Janet Barker, Chris Cranch, Caroline Thomas, Amanda Jones and Mack McNamara. Sarah is also a current Flight Nurse and can occasionally be seen in the skies over Northland when required!
The Flight Nurses receive in-house education that covers aspects of Aviation Medicine such as Barometric Pressure changes and their effect on specific patient conditions, decreased Partial Pressure of Oxygen issues, Stresses of Flight such as vibration, noise, fatigue, temperature extremes and G-forces. Once they have a few hours under their belt the nurses are encouraged to complete the National Certificate in Flight Nursing to further enhance their knowledge base in this demanding and challenging environment.
The current regular doctors on our team are Graham Bain, Inia Raumati and Mohammed Bahr. These guys are all working in ICU at present and whilst they are at different stages in their medical training, they are experienced and very capable at dealing with the various challenges they face on every flight.
The usual hospitals we fly to are Kaitaia, Kawakawa, Kaeo, Dargaville and Rawene, although we also call at various medical centres when required, such as Kerikeri, Maungatoroto and Kaiwaka. The hospitals all have concrete helipads with good lights and access for us, whilst to get to the health centres we often land at various sports centres and get taken by ambulance to the patient’s location. The Northland communities have shown fantastic support in many of these rural areas and have paid for the construction of concrete helipads for us to land on at the side of the local rugby pitch or school playing field.
The ICU Flight Team use a purpose designed mobile ICU stretcher to transport patients. This holds all the equipment necessary to deliver care and treatments to a critically ill patient in the transport environment. We also have a dedicated incubator for use with very small infants.
As well as retrieving patients from around Northland and bringing them back to Whangarei, we also take patients south, usually to Auckland Public Hospital although some patients go to Middlemore depending on their needs. The patients that are taken to Auckland are those requiring services not available in Whangarei – generally Neurosurgery, Cardiac Surgery, specialist Paediatric Intensive Care, Burns Management and Plastic Surgery.
The ICU team members are a dynamic bunch – very experienced advanced practitioners well used to practicing confidently and autonomously. They all thoroughly enjoy the flight aspect of their ICU roles and revel in the challenges that the role constantly presents them with.
We are all proud to be members of this very special team.
(Profile by Janet Barker)