Medical Oxygen, Suction & Electrical
Medical Oxygen
Each of our dedicated aircraft has a medical oxygen system to provide oxygen to patients in flight. We use a gaseous oxygen in cylinders and each aircraft has both inbuilt and removable supplies. The inbuilt system is recharged from high pressure cylinders at each of our bases whilst the removable cylinders are simply swapped out. The dual sources provides redundancy in the event of a failure of one source of supply. The removable oxygen cylinders can also be taken away from the aircraft for scene responses. The total oxygen available is approximately 7,000 litres STPS. The supply is regulated and distributed through a series of standard medical outlets throughout the cabin. The system wil supply oxygen by face mask, or drive ventilators and Venturi suction units.
The medical oxygen system is independent of the emergency crew oxygen system which is available for emergencies such as depressurization or fumes in the cabin.
Medical Suction
Each aircraft also has a medical suction system. The main system uses electrically powered vacuum pumps and is plumbed to outlets throughout the cabin. Additional alternate suction is available using oxygen driven Venturi suction units.
Electrical Power
All of our biomedical retrieval equipment has internal battery power. However on long flights, this may not be enough. Each aircraft therefor has electrical power outlets to assist with the operation of a range of biomedical equipment. There are 240V AC (RCD protected) outlets with standard power outlets. There are also 24/28V DC power outlets using environmental three pin connections in accordance with the informal Australian Standard for aeromedical power. The 240V power is often used to charge some equipment whilst other items (for example, the Propoaq) can be operated directly from the DC power outlets.