Service · Getting home
Bringing a patient back
to their own doctors.
Repatriation is the journey from a hospital abroad to a hospital at home, arranged so that care never lapses, a family is never guessing, and the receiving medical team knows exactly what state the patient is arriving in.
Service · Getting home
What this covers.
Being treated well abroad and being treated at home are not the same thing. Continuity of care, language, insurance and rehabilitation all sit inside a patient's own healthcare system, and for a serious illness or injury that system is usually where recovery actually happens.
Medical repatriation closes that gap. It moves a patient from the facility that stabilised their care, to a home facility that will treat them long term. All without interrupting monitoring, medication or clinical oversight along the way.
When repatriation is the right call
- The treating physician recommends returning home for continued care
- Local treatment options are limited for the specific condition
- Recovery or rehabilitation will be long, and belongs near family and home clinicians
- Language or insurance barriers are affecting the quality of local care
- The patient is stable enough to travel but not fit for a scheduled airline
What repatriation is not
It is not a way to change destination. A repatriation flight returns a member to their home country or designated home airport for continued treatment. It does not cover transport to an alternate holiday destination, and it does not apply to a condition that existed before the trip began — the medical event has to have occurred while travelling, and documentation from the treating physician is required to establish that.
A repatriation, step by step
The process from
injury to home
Repatriation looks simple from the outside — a flight home. In practice it is a chain of handovers, and every link has to hold.
The family or hospital calls
Early notification matters more than anything else. It lets our medical team start talking to the treating physicians while the clinical picture is still forming.
Fit to fly, or not yet
Our physician and the treating doctor decide together whether the patient can travel safely, and if not, what needs to change first. Sometimes the right answer is to wait 48 hours.
Documentation and approvals
Medical records, discharge authorisation from the treating facility, acceptance from the receiving hospital, and travel documentation for the patient and any accompanying family.
The chain of custody
The treating hospital transfers the patient into EuropeCairs treatment at the local airport, our team then takes over care and treatment on the ground, in the air and as handover takes place back on home soil at the receiving airport.
Repatriation timelines vary widely. A stable transfer within Europe may be arranged in a day; an intercontinental intensive care transfer with permit requirements can take longer.
Continue reading
Related services.
How a medically configured aircraft mission is planned and flown.
The continuous-care model that keeps a repatriation from becoming a series of gaps.
When a scheduled flight with a stretcher installation is the better option.
Questions we are asked
Before you
need us.
If your situation is not covered here, the coordination centre will answer directly, day or night.
Call +1-954-376-9222The treating physician recommends return home; a EuropeCair physician reviews the case with them and determines fitness to fly; we then arrange the aircraft or airline option, the medical crew, the ground ambulances and the receiving hospital handover, and Reliable Patient Transfer.
No. Repatriation returns you to your home country or designated home airport for continued treatment. Membership does not cover transport to alternate destinations.
No. The medical event must occur while you are travelling, and medical documentation from the treating physician is required to verify when and where the injury or illness occurred.
Each medically transported patient requires their own aircraft, because each air ambulance is configured with one stretcher at a time. Our coordinators plan the two missions together so the family is separated for as little time as possible.
No, ground transport should be arranged by the treating medical facility
Arrange it before you need it
One number, answered
around the clock.
If a transport is needed now, call the coordination centre. If you are planning ahead, a EuropeCair membership is $600 a year and covers unlimited medically necessary repatriation flights.