Angel Flight gets some good local press

"Blanche Cohen" wrote in message
...
I live in the Rocky Mountain area and Angel Flight here is really
necessary. All too many of our pax are nowhere near a major airport
or even a train station.

True, my perspective is colored by my own local experiences with AF. Here in
the northeast, AF is often a matter of convenience (albeit a significant
one!) rather than necessity.

--Gary

Gary wrote:

Here in the northeast, AF is often a matter of convenience
(albeit a significant one!) rather than necessity.

A 4 year old child loses both kidneys and is on dialysis. He needs a
transplant and the doctor who is to perform the transplant is 8 hours
away by car. His family hears about Angel Flight and asks for help.
Angel Flight Northeast steps in and is able to fly this boy and his
mother to the transplant and for every follow-up appointment over the
next year (from Rochester, NY, to Boston) to see if the kidney is being
rejected.

Convenience or necessity?

A woman is in the late stages of cancer and is close to death. She
wants more than anything else to witness her daughter's wedding, which
is located in the middle of Maine, far from any commercial airport.
She is unable to make the seven-to-ten hour car ride and cannot fly the
airlines due to her lower immune system. She hears about Angel Flight
and is able to get a flight from Teterboro to mid-Maine. She
witnesses her child's wedding, then dies sometime soon thereafter.

Convenience or necessity?

Gary, I don't mean to stir the waters here with you, but I do perceive
flying for AF a bit differently than my interpretation of how you
perceive it. I perceive it as more of a necessity for these people
than a convenience. How many of AF's patients would opt to skip an
important follow-up appointment if they were faced with a long car ride
each month?

--
Peter R.
(via cumbersome Google Groups)

True, my perspective is colored by my own local experiences with AF.
Here in
the northeast, AF is often a matter of convenience (albeit a
significant
one!) rather than necessity.

On the Gulf Coast, it's a matter of necessity. We're very spread out
here. There are major cancer facilities in Houston and San Antonio,
and effectively nowhere else in the area. I've flown patients in from
all over Texas, Arkansas, Missisippi, and Louisiana. They're looking
at 6-12 hour drives to make Houston - and usually flying them in by
airline is no faster (or cheaper!) because we're looking at commuter
airlines making connections. Many of these people simply can't make
the trip - it's just too rough. The only realistic option for them is
medical charter - which most insurance (including Medicare) won't pay
for.

What's more, medical charter is significantly more expensive than my
airplane - in part because their pilots and mechanics need to be paid,
while I fly and turn wrenches for free, and in part due to regulatory
costs (which have NOT given them a better safety record than Angel
Flight).

I agree that in the NE, Angel Flight is probably more a matter of
convenience than anything else, but here in the sparsely populated
parts of the country it's a matter of life and death for many.

Unfortunately, all too often they die anyway. Most of the patients I
fly are very old and very sick. I've flown for Angel Flight a little
over four years, and tonight I fly my 50th mission. Most of the people
I have flown are dead. Once, I actually took a woman home (to
someplace in Louisiana that was hours away from the nearest airport
with commuter service) who was told by her doctors that they had tried
all they had, and there were no more experimental treatments for which
she qualified. All they could give her was something to ease the pain,
and the local sawbones could do it just as well. They were sending her
home to die.

It is the nature of experimental treatments that most of the patients
don't make it. Some do. Sometimes the patient pulls through. I
recently heard from a patient who had not flown with us in months.
When I first started, he would be here every week or two and I flew him
several times. Then he sort of disappeared from the mission rosters,
and I assumed the worst. He had some sort of leukaemia, after all.
But it turned out he was simply down to a two visits a year now, for
monitoring. He is in remission. Sometimes, you win one. It makes it
easier to keep going.

Michael