The medical plane sent by the Spanish Ministry of Defense to repatriate from Thailand the Basque citizen, Alexander García Galas, seriously ill and whose life is in danger, has landed at the Bilbao airport, after 6 p.m. this Sunday, from where an ambulance He has been transferred to the Las Cruces hospital in Vizcaya, at the request of his family. The Basque tourist finally manages to return to his country and reunite with his loved ones, after having tried by other means on two occasions, which were unsuccessful due to the danger of the trip for his very delicate state of health.
Despite the fact that it was a “very difficult air evacuation,” as the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, acknowledged on Friday; The operation has been a “success”, according to the Government delegate in the Basque Country, Marisol Garmendia. The patient, who had been admitted for more than a month in critical condition in a Bangkok hospital suffering from necrotizing pancreatitis, has been transferred without complications to the hospital closest to Loiu airport.
The aircraft had departed this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. local time (4:00 a.m. in Spain) from the Don Mueang civil airport in Bangkok. After a twelve-hour flight, he landed around 6:20 p.m. with the patient’s mother and sister-in-law, who were with him in Thailand.
An Advanced Life Support ambulance from Osakidetza (Basque Health Service) with a specialized medical team has waited for the patient at the foot of the track, where it has received first-hand information about his condition and has taken charge of him for transfer to the hospital.
On the plane, 24 people traveled, including five doctors and four military nurses who, as Robles explained in his presentation of the operation to the media on Friday, are “absolutely prepared to ensure the transfer of this person and that he can return to his home.” home”.
The Spanish citizen, a native of Basauri and resident in San Sebastián, is suffering from severe pancreatitis, and given the difficulties they have had in repatriating him, his family asked the Spanish Government for help because he is in danger of imminent death, according to the doctors.
The 36-year-old patient has been admitted to the ICU of the Samitivej Hospital in Bangkok (Tahiland), a country to which he traveled a little over a month ago with his wife, after, before traveling, the doctor who treated him in Spain told him that the discomfort he was suffering was due to “gas” and that he had “nothing.”
Once in the Asian country, where the couple went with an insurance policy, the man began to “feel bad,” so he was hospitalized with “30% necrotizing pancreatitis of biliary origin,” according to what his family told Efe. cousin and family spokesperson, Janire Galas.
After a month, the insurance made a first attempt at repatriation through a regular airline, accompanied by a doctor, although the trip was frustrated because, when going to board, the pilot did not allow it because he was “vomiting”, After which he was admitted to a second hospital, the Samitivej in Bangkok, where he was also diagnosed with pneumonia among other complications.
His situation was “worsening” until he suffered a “cardiac arrest” that forced him to be intubated and his relatives contacted the insurance company to request that he be repatriated in an air ambulance, to which the company responded that this possibility “was not contemplated in the policy”, despite the fact that, according to Galas, a section appears in this document with the phrase “unlimited repatriation”.
Finally, given the “worsening” of the situation, the family made the “effort” to hire a private air ambulance with two doctors who went to Thailand to see the patient.
The affected person arrived at the airport, where those in charge of the second private repatriation attempt carried out a check-up that determined that he needed 30 liters of oxygen, when the hospital report reflected that he needed four, so they decided to break the contract, not transfer him and return him. to hospital.
Subsequently, the patient’s relatives received a report from the hospital in which it was clarified that it was still possible for the patient to be repatriated if it was not done on a medical plane, although they were warned that he should “fly now” and that should do it “as quickly as possible because there is a risk of severe internal bleeding.”
The report also warns that necrotizing pancreatitis has increased “from 30% to 50%” and that “the antibiotics they are using no longer do anything.” Given this situation, the family requested repatriation through the Air Evacuation Medical Unit of the Air Force.