The 24-hour medical service to address possible cases of illness on Finnair flights has been extended to cover the company's domestic and European flights. On Finnair's Leisure flights and long-haul network the service has been provided by the US company MedAire. Now an agreement has been reached with EMA Group Oy to provide a corresponding service for Finnair's European and domestic traffic. With the aid of the medical emergency centres, Finnair's aircraft now have expert assistance available 24 hours a day for all cases of illness that occur on flights. "Several dozen serious cases of illness happen on Finnair flights each year. Handling them is always a challenge in which, in addition to the illness itself, we have to assess the need for a possible unscheduled landing as well as land transportation and the arrangement of appropriate follow-up care for the patient. Expert organisations help Finnair to make our passengers' flights as safe as possible, even in the event of an illness," says Finnair's Senior Flight Physician Olavi Hämäläinen. On all Finnair flights there is a 'doctor's bag' containing the most important first-aid medicines. Finnair long-haul traffic aircraft also have defibrillators - devices designed to deliver an electrical shock to the heart - which are an effective aid in correcting sudden ventricular fibrillation, which leads to death if left untreated. Lots of medical information related to flying has been collected for passengers on the Finnair website at the address www.finnair.com > Travel info > Medical page. Finnair, moreover, has established a Medadesk service to coordinate arrangements for those passengers travelling on Finnair flights whose state of health requires preliminary examinations before the flight or special service during the flight. Passengers can contact Medadesk either through their own agency or via Finnair's sales services. "With the Medadesk service we want to ensure that the journey of anyone needing special medical attention is a success from the initial preparation stage, and that both ground and flight staff are aware of any special arrangements," explains Director Anja Koho of Finnair Health Services. MedAire (www.medaire.com) is a US health services company whose experts are responsible for handling around 4,000 medical emergencies per month. EMA Group Oy (www.ema.fi) is Finland's leading expert organisation specialised in non-hospital medical care. The company's lines of business are traveller's medical service (patient monitoring, patient transfers and medical clearance services), ground ambulance service, education and research. In a blog published today (address: http://blogs.finnair.com/2009/06/25/physician-tips/) Finnair's Senior Flight Physician gives advice on how one's state of health should be taken into account on a flight. He provides tips, for example, on cases of flu, exercise and advance preparations. Finnair Plc Communications 25.06.2009 Further information: - Flight Physician Olavi Hämäläinen, tel. +358 9 818 4845 or Finnair Media Desk tel. +358 9 818 4020, media.desk[a]finnair.com. www.medaire.com Finnair blogs: http://blogs.finnair.com Photobank: www.finnair.com/gallery Finnair Group website: www.finnairgroup.com via.Helsinki: www.viahelsinki.com