By David Pierce
The New Hampshire Union Leader
BEDFORD, Mass. 鈥� Just about every day last year, Boston MedFlight helicopters flew patients in southern New Hampshire to a hospital for critical care.
This year, the 40-year-old nonprofit hopes to meet the rising demand and respond even faster by dedicating a helicopter and three-person crew for daily service based at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease.
Service begins March 1, Boston MedFlight CEO Maura Hughes said, and will help first responders during emergencies: reach more communities in New Hampshire; transfer patients from hospital to hospital for specialized care; and enhance the mutual-aid-like coordination with other medical helicopter services by Dartmouth Hitchcock Advanced Response Team (DHART) and LifeFlight of Maine.
鈥淭his will make us closer to patients and decrease our response times to patients in southern New Hampshire,鈥� Hughes said.
The Pease base will operate during the peak hours of the day as the weather and the volume of calls permit. The crew in Portsmouth will consist of a pilot, a critical care transport nurse and a paramedic.
In 2024, Boston MedFlight provided critical care flights 350 times in New Hampshire.
Boston MedFlight鈥檚 headquarters is in Bedford, Mass., and the company has seven helicopters, a jet for long distances, and intensive-care-level ground transportation from New Hampshire to Cape Cod.
The Portsmouth base will bring MedFlight鈥檚 number of bases to five, with flights out of Bedford, Lawrence, Mansfield and Plymouth, Mass., already.
鈥淲e want to make sure that we鈥檙e there for patients, and we鈥檙e adding to Pease to what we saw as an unmet need,鈥� Hughes said. 鈥淲e work very closely with DHART and with LifeFlight of Maine in the area and all of the New England air medical programs work really, really closely together. We back each other up. We take each other鈥檚 calls, so we already do that, but we saw an unmet need in southern New Hampshire .鈥�
Almost 90% of Boston MedFlight鈥檚 helicopter flights involve moving patients from hospital to hospital, she said. Since its founding in 1985, Boston MedFlight has cared for more than 100,000 patients.
鈥淲e take care of any patients from premature newborn to someone who鈥檚 100 years old, and everything from heart attacks, strokes, traumas, really sick medical patients,鈥� Hughes said. 鈥淔or us now, one out of four of our patients is a baby or a child. So, we take care of babies and children every day.鈥�
As a nonprofit, Boston MedFlight provides services whether a patient can pay or not, Hughes said.
鈥淲e give away over $7 million in free care every year,鈥� she said.
For more information on Boston MedFlight, visit .
漏 2025 The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.)
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