The medicalized air resources of the Canary Islands Emergency Service (SUC) have carried out fourteen organ transfers between hospitals in the archipelago during the first half of 2026.
This has been communicated by the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, which has emphasized the "essential" role of medicalized helicopters within the transplant chain, ensuring agile and safe transport of organs between the different hospital centers of the islands.
In this regard, during the year 2025, these means were activated on 20 occasions for the transfer of organs and, in some cases, also of healthcare personnel to hospitals in Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
The logistical organization and healthcare assistance provided by this service help to shorten waiting times and ensure that the organs arrive in the best possible conditions for implantation.
To achieve this, the SUC maintains constant coordination with the extraction teams and with the transplant coordination units of the hospitals of the Canary Health Service (SCS), in order to immediately activate the necessary resources as soon as a compatible donation is confirmed.
In this type of operations, the SUC deploys its air resources —one plane and three medicalized helicopters— along with the network of ground resources, made up of medicalized ambulances, sanitized ambulances, and basic life support vehicles, rapid intervention vehicles, and non-urgent healthcare transport units.
From the emergency room, doctors and nurses precisely supervise the routes and times of each mission, as in many situations every minute is crucial to preserve the viability of the organ.
In addition to the transfer of organs, the Canary Islands Emergency Service also intervenes in the transport of specialized healthcare personnel (doctors and nurses), facilitating that the teams arrive on time both to carry out the extraction and to perform the implantation.