To the hospital by State Emergency Service aircraft: government approves evacuation of seriously ill patients

In Ukraine, air medical evacuation of critically ill patients aboard aircraft operated by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU) is planned to launch by the end of 2026. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has already approved the relevant procedure. The goal is to shorten travel times to specialist medical facilities so that patients in critical condition can receive the care they need as quickly as possible.

Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi announced the government’s decision. As an example of the advantages of air transport, he cited the route from Kharkiv to the evacuation center in Rzeszów, Poland: the road journey currently takes around 15–16 hours, while the flight could take 2–3 hours.

The new procedure provides for the following:

• transferring patients between hospitals;
• evacuating patients abroad for necessary treatment, including under the Medevac Ukraine program;
• transporting donor organs for transplantation;
• transporting medical teams;
• delivering specialized medical equipment.

Responsibilities for organizing the process have been divided between the medical institution and rescue services:

• the Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine of the Ministry of Health will coordinate evacuation transport;
• the SESU will provide aircraft and crews, taking weather conditions and safety requirements into account.

We previously reported:

• Donor organs to be delivered by drones: Ukraine launches an experiment
• When it seemed impossible, Ukrainian medics got a helicopter airborne and saved a teenager
• A boy from Mykolaiv region received a heart transplant—with air ambulance services brought in for the operation
• “Mass medical evacuation”: people evacuated from Kherson region to Lviv region
• Starting in 2021, aircraft will be used in Ukraine to transport critically ill patients, says the Ministry of Health