The launching ceremony of China’ Largest Hospital Alliance for Air Medical Services was held at the Riverside Campus of the Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University (SAHZU) on Aug. 14, 2016. The Alliance was initiated by SAHZU and China Air Medical Company (the nation’s largest medical helicopter company), along with 13 nationally renowned hospitals from eight provinces, including East China’s SAHZU, Jiangsu Provincial People’s Hospital and Qilu Hospital Shandong University, West China’s the First Affiliated Hospital Chongqing Medical University, South China’s Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, North China’s People’s Liberation Army General Hospital and China-Japan Friendship Hospital, and Central China’s Xiangya Hospital Central South University, etc. Until now, it has 68 member hospitals throughout the country.

“Air rescue is an effective complement to ground rescue,” said Prof. Wang Jian’an, President of SAHZU. “Air rescue is a kind of racing against time for life in the case of ground traffic congestion or remote location.”

“Today, we are rewriting China’s medical history, with the foundation of the nation’s largest hospital alliance for air ambulance services,” said Qian Siwei, President of China Air Medical Company.

As the cradle of Chinese Emergency Medicine, SAHZU took the lead in Zhejiang Province in building an “air 120” rescue system as early as 2005. It is the only hospital in Zhejiang Province that has helipads at both of its two campuses and has air rescue experience. Besides, the two helipads both reach the takeoff and landing requirements of the rescue helicopter of the world’s greatest tonnage. SAHZU air emergency medical team consists of 6 doctors and 6 nurses with first-class professional, physical and psychological quality from Emergency Department. The Team has accumulated rich first aid experience through a series of successful disaster medical rescues, including their first air rescue in 2009.

On the day of the Alliance’ foundation, SAHZU’s air emergency medical team transferred a heart attack patient from Changxing County People’s Hospital, 100 kilometers away from Hangzhou, to SAHZU by helicopter. The round trip was brief: within two hours, including flight time, the patient was out of surgery at SAHZU. Without the helicopter, it would likely take an ambulance over two hours just for single trip, instead of 30 minutes by air.

For air medical services, citizens could dial 4008-120-120. An air ambulance service doesn’t come cheap. It costs as much as 30,000 yuan ($4,500) per hour, but several insurance plans with premiums ranging from 399 yuan to 1,399 yuan could help a patient defray the cost. China Air Medical Company will soon launch an insurance plan online, and the fee is predicted to be 300 yuan/person in Zhejiang Province.