How to proceed
As a US Paramedic with years of experience not only in responding to emergencies, part of my experience has been patient care for patients with disabilities who simply needed to be transported to doctors offices and hospitals for care and treatment. Each patient is handled differently based on their disability and although patients may be paraplegic and even quad, they experience difficulties that do include pain and you really need to know how to manage and mobilize these patients as easily as possible with an emphasis on maintaining their dignity as well. Too often they are embarrassed and fear they are a burden to the general public so they stay home and do not travel. They also fear the unknown and small things that we take for granted such as lav access are huge.
This is one part of why I've been so interested in starting a business of disability assistance for travelers. The other part is to provide airlines staff for inflight emergencies that could range from chest pain to allergic reactions to panic attacks for pax inflight. Yes cabin crew are trained and do have to check off on these skills to maintain their licensing but, every situation is different and unless this is something you do almost every day, you lose alot of that knowledge and that increases a lack of confidence which can affect patient care as well. I've assisted in inflight emergencies quite a few times and I've never met a cabin crew or flight deck officer who wasn't glad I was on board. I've even been offered air miles which I respectfully declined.
I would love to continue my career in the medical field to include travel and assisting disabled pax. Not only do I have the medical experience, I also have experience working for the airlines on the ramp and have grown up in aviation. For those of you with business degrees and a general knowledge of business start up, what are your recommendations? My first thought on this would be to offer Paramedics, RN's, Doctors etc who are as skilled the ability to fly non rev in lieu of offering their services to the airlines. There are travelers who are financially able to hire medical staff to assist with flying with disabled pax as well. This could even include donating miles. This has been a passion of mine. Even on my flight from DXB to MEM recently, I assisted a pax in IAD who needed assistance getting onto an RJ who was not able to ambulate on her own. While inflight, she told me how comfortable she felt that I was there to help her and how she wished that this type of service was available in every city and every country. She stated she would travel a whole lot more. And reading this thread has shown me it is truly needed. I think this would also make cabin crew and pilots feel more at ease as well.
If you have any suggestions or recommendations, please feel free to PM me.