The Bhutan Foundation handed over medical equipment worth of Nu 1.3m to the Bhutan Emergency Aero-medical Retrieval (BEAR) team, under the Health Ministry, yesterday. The medical equipment is expected to help improve emergency medical services in the country.
The donated equipment consists of handheld and portable devices. It will enable early intervention and immediate improvement in the quality of the care being provided to the patients during the in-flight transport.
“With the equipment that the Bhutan Foundation has been so kind to donate us, we are going to provide our services in a timely manner, and also deliver cutting edge resuscitation care to the patients, anywhere and everywhere in Bhutan,” said Dr. Urvashi Sharma, member of BEAR team. “The monitor and infusion pumps that the Bhutan Foundation has donated, we haven’t had that before relying a lot on the emergency department and taking equipment from there to reach to the patients, this is going to help us a lot.”
Team BEAR with the Royal Bhutan Helicopter services Limited responds to any life-threatening emergencies to ensure that it is able to reach the patients in critical need anywhere in the country. The team consists of national and international resuscitation doctors and nurses.
The emergency response team came into operation in May this year. So far, the team has saved 60 lives.