麻豆传媒AV

Maymont Seniors' Centre STARS information meeting was held Jan. 22. Twelve people were in attendance for this information meeting. Thank you, Tara Oliver, for the presentation.

Some of you may not know this but STARS had been in the Maymont area three times in the last three months. STARS can arrive in Maymont in 31 minutes; that includes the eight minutes for start-up.

The Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society provides a safe, rapid, highly specialized emergency medical transport system for critically ill and injured patients. STARS is a charitable, non-profit organization that provides service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Helicopter EMS supplements other emergency medical services. STARS works closely with emergency service partners in the chain of survival. Together with local EMS, fire departments, police and health regions, they work to ensure the best possible outcomes for patients.

The STARS vision of saving lives is supported by four areas: emergency medical communications, patient care and transport, education and fundraising and community partnerships.

The STARS emergency link centre is a 24-hour emergency medical communications centre that offers timely information to emergency service providers for critically ill and injured patients. In the event of a medical emergency, one call activates the chain of survival by linking local emergency services, physicians and appropriate transportation providers.

Every mission flown by STARS takes the expertise of a nurse experienced in emergency/critical care, and advanced life support paramedic, a pilot and copilot. The team operates within an intensive care environment on the helicopter to provide emergency care and transport to critically ill and injured patients. Referral emergency physicians are on-call to provide medical consultation via telephone to the paramedics and nurses at the scene, and to provide medical referral to hospitals.

When necessary, the referral emergency physician will accompany patients on the helicopter. On average, this occurs on about 20 percent of missions.

A significant level of ICU or emergency care knowledge is required by the medical team. Most medical crew members work in emergency medical service or intensive care hospital environments, in addition to working with STARS.

The highly experienced STARS pilots are trained in night vision goggle operations. Captains have a minimum of 3,000 helicopter flying hours.

STARS is committed to providing education and training opportunities for their own crews and partners in the chain of survival.

The STARS Foundation is the fundraising arm for STARS. Funding is met through donations received from individuals, service groups, business and corporations and municipalities, and through collaborative agreements with provincial governments.

STARS focuses on providing care and transport for critically ill and injured patients in rural areas of Saskatchewan. This includes inter-hospital transfers from a rural hospital to a major hospital, as well as scene response such as on highways, in remote areas and industry work sites.

Dr. Gregory Powell, the founder and former CEO of STARS, is a professor of family medicine and emergency medicine at the faculty of medicine of the University of Calgary. After attending medical school in Australia, he spent time as an observer in the Vietnam War. This experience showed him the advantage of using aircraft to get critically ill people to medical treatment.

In the 1970s Powell served as chief of the emergency department at the university's Foothills Medical Centre. "I saw people coming into our care who could be salvaged if we had a bit more speed and talent applied to the pre-hospital part of their care," he later said. So he decided to create an air medical transport service for Calgary.

The local Lions Club provided seed money. The Foundation created its working arm, Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS), which carried out its first mission Dec. 1, 1985. Since then more than 23,000 flights have been carried out.

The service currently operates from three bases in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan and one in Manitoba. Powell served as founder, president and CEO of STARS for 27 years. In April 2012 he gave up the roles of president and CEO to Andrea Robertson, while remaining actively involved as founder.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in July, 2006. Also in 2006 he was given the Medal for Distinguished Service by the Alberta Medical Association. He was presented with a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in November, 2012. In 2012 he was also given the Marriott-Carlson Lifetime Achievement award, presented at the annual Air Medical Transport Conference in Seattle.