Imagine something happens to you while on holiday, for example when you are skiing in the Alps or wherever it is you like to do that and something happens to you while there. A skiing accident for example, where you fell down somewhere and broke both your legs, because well… skiing is dangerous after all.
You will probably be taken away by an air ambulance to a nearby hospital. Now in the Alps usually the healthcare is pretty good, you will likely be in either Switzerland, or Austria, two rather rich countries with good healthcare. However, your home country is still preferable to being sick. And if you have money, repatriation is most definitely an option.
Flying ambulances
So of course there are flying ambulances. You know, the helicopters you see flying around every once in a while. This isn’t what would be used for a repatriation though of course. That would be very unstable and uncomfortable. No for a repatriation an airplane would be used. Not a normal plane though of course, especially if the health problems you have are quite severe. You can’t just go sit in economy class with a respirator or something like that of course. No for this there are special airplanes which, like an ambulance, are built to transport someone who is in need of medical attention. In this way one can be transported from one hospital to another, even across the world.
For the rich
Obviously though, this is something rather expensive. Usually one wouldn’t be able to do this, also insurance wouldn’t cover this since it’s rather unnecessary usually. However, if you have a lot of money and a lot of homesickness… things can be arranged of course. Because this is not at all something that is usually important. Unless your health issues started in a country where healthcare is poor and you need to be brought abroad for special treatment. Otherwise, it might be good to reconsider whether it is really so very important that you, you individually, should be transported to a hospital in your own nation.
Environment
Let’s think of the environment for example. Flying one person in an airplane is not very efficient. Besides, it isn’t a normal plane, it is a plane with a lot of heavy equipment on board, making the flight much more fuel consuming. It is bad business to fly a plane solely for the purpose of indulging in your own rather irrelevant needs. Unless it is actually important to your health, it is best to simply stay in the country where you are and not move at all until you are healed enough to leave the hospital and to travel again. That way there will be no need for unnecessarily expensive and environmentally damaging measures like flying a private plane to your home country in order to help you with your homesickness, because you cannot handle being away for a bit somewhere in a country where you don’t like it as much as back home.
