Hospital to Ngurah Rai: Planning a Medevac Transfer

A planned medical transfer in Bali — hospital to hospital, or hospital to Ngurah Rai for a medevac connection — is coordinated between the treating hospital, the ambulance operator, the evacuation provider and, where an escort is sought, the traffic police. In a genuine emergency you contact emergency services and the hospital first. A coordination desk supports planned movements. It is not an emergency number.

This is not an emergency number

Worth saying once, plainly, before anything else. If a person has collapsed, is bleeding, is in respiratory distress, or has been in a road accident, you call the national emergency line and the ambulance dispatch of the nearest hospital. Not a coordination desk. Not a WhatsApp thread. Not a concierge. In those minutes the only useful people are clinicians and dispatchers, and every message sent elsewhere is a message not sent to them.

Our work starts after that. It starts when a patient is stable enough to be moved, when a receiving facility has agreed to take them, and when there is a date and a time on the movement. That is a planned transfer, and planned transfers reward preparation. The boundary is set out again on our medical movement page, and we do not blur it.

What the law gives an ambulance carrying a patient

Article 134 of Law No. 22 of 2009 on Road Traffic and Road Transport sets a priority order for road users. Fire-service vehicles on duty come first. Ambulances carrying the sick come second. Then vehicles rendering assistance at a traffic accident, vehicles of the leaders of Indonesian state institutions, vehicles of foreign leaders and officials of international institutions who are guests of the state, funeral processions, and finally convoys or vehicles for particular interests according to the assessment of Indonesian National Police officers.

That ranking is often quoted as though it were self-executing. It is not. Article 135 provides that priority is exercised after permission is obtained from the police, and that sirens and rotator lamps are used in accordance with the type of priority and the police permit. Perkap No. 10 of 2012 then places escorting itself in the hands of specially assigned traffic-police personnel. So an ambulance sits high in the order, but the order is administered by officers on the road, not claimed by the vehicle. The legal basis page sets out the provisions in full.

The two planned movements we see most

Hospital to hospital

Usually a step up in level of care: a clinic in Seminyak, Canggu or Kuta sending a patient to a larger facility in Denpasar or Nusa Dua. Distances are short. Congestion is the variable, and on Sunset Road or the Ngurah Rai bypass it can be heavy and unpredictable at certain hours. The clinical side is owned by the two facilities; the road side is a survey, a departure window and a vehicle order that does not fall apart when the discharge paperwork runs late.

Hospital to Ngurah Rai for a medevac connection

Here the movement is governed by something outside Bali: an air ambulance slot, or a stretcher booking on a scheduled service. The hospital releases the patient, the ambulance runs to the airport, and the handover happens under the eye of a ground handling agent on a schedule that was fixed days earlier. Nusa Dua to the airport is roughly 12 km by the Mandara toll road; from Ubud or Tabanan it is a longer, less forgiving run. Airside access and escorting arrangements at the terminal are covered separately on our airport transfer page.

Who owns which part of the movement

Most confusion in a medevac connection comes from parties assuming someone else has a task. This is how the responsibilities usually divide.

The road side: survey, timing and the kerb

The part we perform is unglamorous and it is where movements are actually won. We drive the route beforehand, at the hour the movement will run, and we drive the alternate. We agree a marshalling point outside the hospital so vehicles are not circling. We put the family in a separate car with the luggage, because a family car that follows an ambulance into traffic and loses it creates a second problem at the airport.

Then there is waiting. Anyone who has stood at the Ngurah Rai kerb watching an inbound slip by an hour knows that the discipline is holding the plan steady rather than improvising a new one. We keep one person on the phone to the handling agent, one at the vehicles, and we do not move the patient earlier than the clinical team wants simply because a schedule looks tidy on paper.

Where a police escort fits — and where it does not

An escort is a police function. It is performed by traffic-police personnel, granted by the competent authority on its own assessment, and exercised only after permission. It is never automatic and it is never guaranteed, and any provider who tells you otherwise is selling something they cannot deliver.

In March 2024 the Head of Public Relations of Bali Police, Kombes Jansen Avitus Panjaitan, stated that escorting is a public service available to citizens and visitors, that requests should be made in writing in advance to the local police unit, that urgent requests may be made directly to officers where appropriate and no other duties intervene, and that it is not to be arranged for money. For a planned medical transfer, that means a written application lodged early with a clear clinical and logistical justification. The request procedure explains the paperwork.

What the published rates cover

Our published rates are the price of the work we perform — coordination, protocol handling, vehicles, chauffeurs and operational readiness. They are not the price of a police officer, and they do not purchase an approval.

• Bike Escort — One Way: USD 268
• Bike Escort — Full Day (12 hours): USD 338
• Bundling — One Way Alphard + One Way Escort: USD 423
• Bundling — Full Day VIP Car (12 hours) + Full Day Escort (12 hours): USD 620

Inclusions are the official police motorcycle escort, professional driver on vehicle packages, fuel and parking, coordination and route management, assistance for smooth traffic navigation, and priority road access where permitted by authorities. Advance reservation is required, all of it is subject to police authority approval and availability, extended hours or special routes may attract additional charges, and rates are subject to change without prior notice. Full detail sits on the rates page, and insurers who need a documented quotation for a case file should ask us for one in writing.

Briefing the desk

To plan a transfer we need the date and time window, the originating facility and area, the destination facility or the flight and handling agent at Ngurah Rai, whether the patient travels seated or by stretcher, the number of accompanying family or medical staff, the insurer or assistance-company reference if there is one, and whether you wish us to lodge an escort application. The earlier that reaches us, the more of it we can actually influence.

Send the brief by WhatsApp to +62 811-2859-0000 or by email to [email protected], and we will come back with a movement plan and a written quotation. And once more, because it matters more than anything else on this page: if the situation is an emergency now, stop reading and call emergency services and the hospital.