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We have medivac helicopters here in Ottawa. I am surprised they don't have them at Tremblant

An outlying small community is not expected to have a medevac helicopter waiting for a call any more than your neighborhood should expect a UPS truck to be parked in your neighborhood waiting for a call to deliver a package to your Aunt Mary.

The "Big City" has the medevac helos based at certain geographic locations and they then fly to the scene of the event and then to the Level One Trauma Center.

In such a situation in my Puget Sound region, if a call comes from a community 75 miles away, a medevac helo is dispatched from the nearest home base to the community to pick up the patient and fly her directly to the Level One Trauma Center in Seattle.

See my Post 133.

What is shocking is not that a ski resort does not have a medevac helo. Nobody expects them to.

My rural hospital might be involved in 3 or 4 helo medevacs in a single busy day but we don't have a medevac helo. Seattle has them.

When we need one, we pick up the phone and call these guys.

Airlift Northwest

They pick up and they deliver. Just like UPS.

What is shocking is that the ENTIRE PROVINCE OF QEBEC has no medevac helos.

Medevac concerns raised by death Que. lacks medical helicopter service ..... "This is like not having a fire department in a community," said Dr. Tarek Razek, head of the trauma team at the McGill University Health Centre. .... Timeliness is crucial after major head traumas, he stressed. .... "You need to get to a trauma centre fast, and the faster we can organize that, the more likely you are to live," he said. .... He stressed that Quebec is one of the few jurisdictions in North American and Europe that don't have emergency medevac helicopters. ..... even the smaller province of Nova Scotia has this service. ..... In Richardson's case, seven hours passed between her fall and her arrival at the specialized trauma hospital in Montreal. ..... The provincial coroner office said it has no intention of investigating the accident, since the actress died in New York.

That is deliberate bean-counter decision to trade Quebecois lives for budget savings.

Note how "the provincial coroner office said it has no intention of investigating the accident, since the actress died in New York." How about that for a Major League "Nothing to see here, folks!" attitude by the Gubbmint.

In the end, it is a VERY cost-effective strategy for cutting down health care costs. It is FAR cheaper to allow people in outlying areas, like Natasha Richardson, to die than to have a medevac system in place that costs money to maintain and costs even MORE money to save the critically injured patient once they land at the Level One Trauma Center.

In Natasha Richardson's particular case, the Quebcec system is SO cost effective that it is even saving itself the cost of a provincial coronor's investigation since, after all, she DID die in New York.

Now THAT is cost-effective bean counting.

The sad thing is that there is a private medevac service in Montreal. I don’t know if the family was aware of this or even told that it was an option, with the Canadian attitude toward private businesses being involved with their medical system.

*There is a non-profit, private air ambulance service in Quebec called Air Medic, but it’s supported by paying members. The founder, François Rivard, said the government has never supported the idea of integrating Air Medic’s services into the provincial ambulance system. That means paramedics on the ground can’t call Air Medic even if they feel it’s needed. His service costs about $3,000 per hour.*

Mrs AV