A Covid-19 patient in need of urgent hospital treatment was flown by helicopter from a remote Abu Dhabi island to the capital.
Abu Dhabi Police's air wing carried the seriously-ill Asian man from Delma Island in an isolation capsule to protect others on board.
The resident, who is in his 50s, was taken to Al Rahba Hospital, one of Abu Dhabi’s main hospitals for Covid-19 treatment.
“Abu Dhabi Police Aviation Operations Room had received a report… stating that a person had contracted coronavirus on Delma Island and needed care,” the force said.
“The air ambulance took off immediately and provided him with the necessary medical care while he was transferred by helicopter from Dalma Island to Al Rahba Hospital to receive the necessary treatment.”
The capsules, unveiled last year, help ensure paramedics and those transferring patients are protected from exposure to the virus, the force said.
Delma Island is located about 40 kilometres off the coast and about 290km to the west of Abu Dhabi city.
The former pearl diving hub is one of the oldest known settlements in the UAE.
Today it is home to about 10,000 people, many of whom work as fishermen or on the island's farms.
Abu Dhabi's door-to-door Covid-19 testing squad
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A team of medics, volunteers and police officers in central Abu Dhabi during a nighttime testing drive. Farha Sameer Baker, right, is head of operations at Tamouh Health Care. All photos by Victor Besa / The National -
Abu Dhabi's government has run door-to-door testing since May 2020. The intention is to identify and isolate cases and drive down community transmissions. -
Maram Herzallah conducts a test on a resident in the corridor outside her home. -
About 15,000 people a day are tested by the team across Abu Dhabi city and Al Ain. -
Medics work with the police given that they often have to close streets for periods of time. -
Nurse Maram Herzallah has her PPE gear checked by a colleague before starting her shift for the night. -
Screening staff are volunteers but most work in the emergency services or in hospitals by day. -
Staff must work diligently to process thousands of samples. People receive their results on the government's Al Hosn tracing app. -
Police work with medics to perform door-to-door testing on an Abu Dhabi street. -
The crew is 100 per cent mobile and carries all the equipment they need to test thousands of people each night. -
The nature of their work means changing their PPE gear frequently. -
Medics sort through Emirates IDs, which are needed to store data and deliver results. -
A group of residents are tested inside one of the crew's screening vans. Volunteers avoid going into people's homes as a precaution. -
Staff at a dry cleaners receive a nasal swab test. -
A police officer stores samples in a cool box until they can be processed. -
A shop worker is tested by a medic. -
The volunteers cover several areas of the city each week. -
Volunteers says they are proud to play their part in tackling the pandemic and driving down cases.
