The flight operations of Finnish medical helicopters have been fully transferred to the state-owned company FinnHEMS following expiry of the service agreement between FinnHEMS and flight operator Babcock Scandinavian AirAmbulance. In future, nationwide HEMS operations will be carried out by FinnHEMS' subsidiary FinnHEMS Flight Services from its medical helicopter bases in Finland.

FinnHEMS' new flight operations organisation currently operates at all six medical helicopter bases in Vantaa, Turku, Tampere, Kuopio, Oulu and Rovaniemi. Flight crew conversion training is still underway at the northern bases.

“The major administrative change was carried out within the given deadline on a very tight schedule. All necessary structures are now in place: personnel, equipment, the new flight operations organisation and related manuals,” says FinnHEMS' CEO Jari Huhtinen. “We will continue to work on developing our human resources and operations.”

The Finnish Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy introduced a revised plan for medical helicopter operations in 2019. The goal was for FinnHEMS to take over nationwide medical helicopter operations from 2022 onwards and for the company to acquire its own helicopter fleet and flight crew for that purpose.

In the autumn of 2020, the operator of FinnHEMS' southern bases became the company's subsidiary. With these changes, flight operations in the northern region were taken over by the company's subsidiary FinnHEMS Flight Services.

The flight crew at the northern bases were transferred to FinnHEMS as part of the business transfer. FinnHEMS has agreed on the lease of the EC135 and H145 helicopters currently in use for the next five years as a temporary solution before acquiring its own helicopter fleet.

Medical services will continue to be provided by the university hospitals and the Lapland Hospital District.