Capital Air Ambulance, which provides the aircraft for the Jersey Emergency Transfer Service, reviewed its weight limit in line with Civil Aviation Authority guidelines, lowering it from 200 kg (31.5 stone) to 136 kg (21 stone).
The new guidelines are now similar to those governing UK and European aircraft operators.
Patients who are over 18 stone will be assessed in order to ensure that they can be transported safely without risk to themselves or to staff, according to the Health Department.
If a patient exceeds the new weight restrictions they will either stay in Jersey for treatment or will be transported by boat, helicopter or on another fixed-wing aircraft.
The Health Department added that it was working with Capital Air Ambulance to look at the options for transporting ‘heavier’ individuals safely.
Speaking about tackling the issue of obesity in Jersey, the Island’s head of health improvement, Martin Knight, said that it was a ‘difficult and challenging’ thing for the Health Department but that there was also an element of ‘personal responsibility’.
‘The Health Department recognises that it is a health problem and it affects the largest portion of the population,’ he said.
‘Around 48 per cent of people are overweight in the Island and we have invested heavily in the Education Department to work with schoolchildren, which includes parent information for healthy lunch boxes and changes to secondary school canteens, but it is the same with any health issue, we need to take our judgmental heads away from it.’
It is believed that because of the weight restrictions imposed last year, no one was barred from travelling on the Island’s air ambulance service, and Health anticipates that even under the new guidelines, a patient would only be transferred by another mode of transport once or twice a year.
