The Mission Media statement
On the second of September Air Ambulance New Zealand deployed one of our UK based Emergency Consultants to Poznan in Poland to uplift Matthew for his repatriation to New Zealand.
Our doctor,a fluent Polish speaker arrived to a very warm welcome by Dr Ledanowski and the team in Poznan and was kindly accommodated at the Hospital . We credit them with saving Matt’s life and acknowledge a balance of hospital fees remains to be taken care of which was surprisingly reasonable given the length of Matt’s stay and procedures undertaken.
Matt and our Doctor escort first travelled by local Ambulance provided by the Hospital to Poznan Airport for a LOT flight to Warsaw where they linked up with our ICU flight nurse who flew directly into Warsaw from her London base.
The team spent some time at the Marriot Hotel pre departure and boarded an Emirates Flight to Dubai where Emirates kindly provided Hotel rooms for the layover , this provided an environment where Matt could have his intravenous feed and a comfortable rest for the next stage Dubai -Kuala Lumpur for a tech-stop then on to Auckland.
Matthew travelled without complication to Auckland.
On arrival an Air Ambulance New Zealand -Transitcare Ambulance was on hand for a direct pre-approved isolation transfer to North Shore Hospital. This process was controlled by Auckland Regional Public health and MIQ very professionally.
We would like to acknowledge the following people who have made this repatriation happen.
The 2303 individual donors to Give A Little that stood behind Matty- you are our heroes.
The Polish Hospital Doctors and clinical support teams.
Dr Gillian Hood -AANZ Medical Director , Dr Marcin Sosnowski and our ICU Flight Nurse Georgie , the Air Ambulance New Zealand Medical team.
Paula and Richelle at Sound Travels, Ian at Emirates Airlines for the trip planning.
Aviation Security service.
Aaron Nicholls of Nicholls Law for his support with pro-bono legal services.
And finally, the hard-working team at MIQ and Waitemata DHB for their assistance in making Matt’s arrival home as smooth as possible.
In this age of Pandemic , a global repatriation of this order is incredibly complex , and clinical staff undertaking these cases are required to endure stand-down periods and testing before resuming clinical work in their normal workplace.
We are grateful this repatriation went so well.
Lastly, some words from Matty’s sister, Sara. A huge thank you to Sean Coleman from Air Ambulance New Zealand and his team, we couldn’t have got Matty home without your guidance and support. Thank you once again to everyone who was able to donate or send messages of encouragement throughout the past few weeks/months. Absolutely blown away by the kindness of strangers who have rallied around us in a time where everyone is going through so much themselves. If this doesn’t restore your faith in humanity, I don’t know what does! No words can ever express our gratitude to the people of Aotearoa & around the world who helped save Matty’s life.
Ends
Sean Coleman
Director -Air Ambulance New Zealand
