Air ambulance services facing burnout and staff and aircraft shortages

Air ambulance services are facing aircraft and staff shortages across the United States as the latest Covid surge fuels an ICU bed crisis, The Independent can reveal.

Covid and natural disasters, combined with responders’ regular workloads, are contributing to more and more patients needing to be transported further and further across the country – and the highly specialised air services are strapped.

“Nobody talks about the helicopters until they need one,” Cameron Curtis, president and CEO of the Washington, DC-based Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS), told The Independent.