Pilot shortage forces state police to curtail ambulance service by 8 hours in Virginia
A pilot shortage has forced Virginia State Police to temporarily curtail its Med-Flight helicopter service by eight hours a day in Central and Southwest Virginia. The changes went into effect Sunday.
Until more pilots can be hired and trained, Med-Flight’s 24-hour coverage has been reduced to 16 hours and will be provided only from 8 a.m. through midnight, state police said in a statement in response to an inquiry.
During the interim in the Richmond region, private, for-hire air ambulance services such as those offered by VCU Health Systems and HCA Hospitals will be used to fill the gap during the period of 12:01 a.m. to 8 a.m. Unlike Med-Flight, which is free of charge, the private entities bill patients for the transport but the fee in most cases is covered by a patient’s health care insurance.
Med-Flight helicopters traditionally have been piloted by sworn state police officers but the department has employed civilian pilots over the years, and the current shortage has opened hiring to civilian aviators. The state has posted job listings seeking pilots for the Med-Flight programs based in Chesterfield County and Abingdon.
Med-Flight I, which began operations in 1984 and is based at the Chesterfield County Airport, responds to calls in a 60-mile radius of Richmond. Chesterfield firefighter-EMTs are the designated paramedics during the flights. Med-Flight II, which began in 1987, responds to calls within a 60-mile radius of Abingdon.
The programs provide rapid response, advanced medical aid and transport of critically injured patients to level one trauma centers. Combined, these programs serve 43 hospitals and the people in 59 counties and 34 cities.
The cutback in the program’s overnight hours is not viewed as having a serious, detrimental effect on emergency medical services in the region, according to a representative of the area’s emergency medical professionals.
Heidi Hooker, director of Old Dominion Emergency Medical System Alliance, which is charged under state law with assisting in the development and implementation of an effective EMS delivery system in Central Virginia, noted the reduced hours are only temporary until new pilots can be brought on board.
“But in the meantime, I believe there are enough air medical services in the region to be adequate — especially during that time of the day,” Hooker said.
The private air-ambulance services already are integrated into the Richmond metro region’s emergency medical plan, she said.
Those services frequently are called upon to pick up patients when Med-Flight is already in service or the location of the emergency is closer to the area covered by the hospitals, Hooker said. HCA’s helicopter, for example, is based at John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell.
“We normally want to get the closest available unit there anyway,” Hooker said. “So [using an air service that doesn’t charge] is not always a factor in determining which air medical unit to call. More importantly it’s which one is closer to the scene, to get to the patient to the hospital the quickest.”
In 2020, the Med-Flight programs responded to 1,598 calls and transported 752 patients, according to Med-Flight statistics kept by state police. Updated figures for 2021 were not immediately available, and it could not be determined how many fights typically occur between midnight and 8 a.m.
