Seek medical clearance before air travel - Emergency Physician specialist advises

Potential travellers, especially those via air, have been advised to always clear themselves with their medical doctors to be sure that they are healthy enough for such trips. 

That would enable travellers to know if they are medically alright to travel to avert any emergencies during the flight.

A Ghanaian emergency physician specialist, Dr Enoch Opoku Afriyie, who gave the advice in an interview, believed that would help to ensure that if the person had a certain medical condition that might not be good for air travel, the doctor could advise against that trip.

“Before we travel, we have to make sure that medically, we are fit. So, I would advise that if you are embarking on such a long journey, you need to see your doctor before the journey to, at least, do a check on you to make sure that you are in a very stable medical state to travel.

“That will also help one to know if there is the risk of a trigger, which could worsen the condition while in flight. So, if you know this prior to travelling, it helps in getting the necessary help before travelling,” Dr Afriyie, who is a specialist at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, said.

Incident

He spoke about leading a team of medical personnel to resuscitate an elderly man who had a cardiac arrest four hours mid-air on board a Delta aircraft from the Kotoka International Airport, Accra, to JFK International Airport, New York.

Dr Afriyie, who is currently pursuing a second master's in Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explained that emergencies could happen to anybody at any time, “but I believe that before we travel, we also have to make sure medically we are fit.

“The incident just tells me that as humans, we can have an emergency anywhere, because I don't think the passenger knew before travelling that this was going to happen, with the wife sitting next to him. And it could have happened to anybody.

“Emergencies can happen to me, it can happen to the flight crew. And in that case, what is needed is the flights being prepared ahead of time in anticipation that anything of this sort could happen, which they were,” Dr Afriyie further advised.

Basic health training

He also advised airlines to, at all times, have basic health equipment and put measures in place, including training their staff to be alert in emergency cases.

“I think that's the little advice I have for passengers and airlines to also try to prepare and train their staff on basic emergency preparation and skills,” Dr Afriyie added.

The Emergency Physician Specialist was impressed with the preparedness of the Delta Air Lines cabin crew and the urgency with which they handled the emergency case.

He was confident that if there was no medical person, the crew members could have done some first aid before thinking about emergency landing.

Humility, sense of pride

Dr Afriyie described it as a humbling experience, saying the incident was a wake-up call for him that as humans, there was the need to always be humble.

“While I feel proud about being able to rescue a threatening situation, in another vein, it humbled me, bringing to face the reality that anything could happen at any time.

“I have had the sense of pride because I have a certain skill or training that can be very important in certain situations, which can be used to help save people's lives or in another situation,” he stated.

This professional and heroic feat has also been celebrated by the professors who trained him initially, citing him as an example of a good student who made significant inroads in the profession, as well as by his current school, John Hopkins. 
 

“It is amazing, I just thank God for using me to save such a situation,” Dr Afriyie stated.