In Africa, receiving timely emergency medical treatment can be the difference between life and death. Even straightforward procedures may become rapidly more serious, depending on the medical facility where the treatment is taking place.

In fact, it was personal experience of this that inspired Aeroworx’s founder to create the medical emergency evacuation company in the first place.

It’s no surprise that Aeroworx prides itself on knowing where the best hospitals and medical facilities are throughout the whole continent. For any particular health issue, the team know the location of the nearest, most appropriate treatment centre.

However, for many health conditions or medical emergencies, the only modern facilities really worth considering are in South Africa and Kenya. And if you are over 5500 miles away in Liberia, say, that’s a problem. It’s a long way and it takes a significant amount of time to make the journey, never mind delays caused by different countries’ paperwork.

That all comes at a high cost – about $76,000, for Liberia to South Africa. That’s just for the emergency hospitalisation flight, treatment is not included. It’s a lot of money to find at short notice.

Many people assume their medical insurance policy will cover this but that is often not the case. Policies tend to be tied to the patient’s country of domicile and don’t include travel from another country, unless that is stipulated in the contract.

So as well as someone facing the trauma of them or a loved one being in a medical emergency, people in this situation also have to raise huge sums of money at very short notice. Often, finding that amount of money is impossible and that can have tragic results.

Of course, for members of Aeroworx medical evacuation policy, this fortunately isn’t an issue. They receive rapid medical emergency transport to the best of Africa’s medical facilities for as little as $30 a month. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.