THE state’s air ambulance service has been forced to spend thousands of dollars buying portable hydration packs, ice vests, refrigerators and bottled water for its paramedics because the Government’s new rescue helicopters do not have air-conditioning.

Staff and patients in the helicopters have endured temperatures of more than 50 degrees. In one instance a doctor suffered heat stress and lost consciousness during a flight.

The move comes days after a helicopter without a winch was sent to collect a man suffering dehydration on a mountain at Orange. It was unable to retrieve him and a second helicopter from Sydney had to be dispatched, arriving an hour later. The man later died in hospital. The helicopters have been widely criticised for not being able to carry more than one patient, failing in extreme temperatures and being incapable of flying long distances.

The helicopters are so sensitive to heat they must be stored in hangars between every job, delaying the time it takes to respond to an emergency. Paramedics have had to use car sun-shields on the windows when they are parked on hospital helipads and have asked for the helicopters to be fitted with air-conditioning and curtains.

In Saturday’s tragedy at Orange, a 26-year-old man became dehydrated after bushwalking on Mount Canobolas. The ambulance service had chosen not to equip Orange air paramedics with a winch because they did not perform enough winch rescues to make it cost-effective. Doctors did not blame the delay in winching the patient out for his death, and said the man was seriously ill when he was found.

But the MP for Calare, John Cobb, said patients deserved better. “This man may have died anyway, but sending a helicopter without a winch took away any chance he had,” Mr Cobb said yesterday. “We do have mountains out here.”

The Opposition’s health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, agreed, saying patients were at risk. “It defies belief that a rescue helicopter based at Orange is not equipped with a winch – it’s as if the state Labor Government thinks all the land west of the Great Divide is flat.”

The head of intensive care at Orange Base Hospital, John Lambert, said the man was close to death when found and had only waited 10 minutes for the helicopter from Sydney.

“He had undoubtedly the worst case of heatstroke I have seen and everything that could be done to help him was done, but we have 38 hospitals out here which are too small to handle major trauma and we need a helicopter capable of travelling long distances quickly and that is funded to operate at night.” Dr Lambert will meet ambulance management in Sydney tomorrow to discuss the issue.

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