Airborne Medical Services

an organization which provides competent emergency medical service to the population. In the USSR the airborne medical service was organized in 1930 under the jurisdiction of the Executive Committee of the USSR Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Its major tasks are to evacuate the sick and wounded from remote and inaccessible areas, to send doctors there for urgent medical service, and to transport medical freights. In wartime the airborne medical service is sometimes the only organization that can evacuate the wounded. In the USA and several other countries the airborne medical service is part of transportation aviation. In the USSR the stations of the airborne medical service were reorganized in 1963 as divisions of emergency help and of planned consultations attached to oblast, krai, and republic hospitals. In 1968 there were 164 such divisions in the USSR, supplied with well-equipped airplanes and helicopters; jet passenger planes with hermetically sealed cockpits are also used (Tu-104 and others).