Talks on site for hospital helipad — but no funds

MEMBERS of the Irish Air Corps and Coastguard Service are due to visit Cork’s biggest hospital soon to help select a site for a new helipad.

The team will consult with managers at Cork University Hospital as part of the site selection process.

They have been called in to ensure the preferred site can accommodate both short and long distance helicopters that may have to land at the hospital as part of rescue operations.

The consultation is expected to take place within weeks. But while the design and planning of the helipad is proceeding, senior Health Service Executive officials have stated that capital funding for the project has not yet been sourced.

Despite this, they are anxious to advance their plans and proceed to lodge a planning application as soon as possible.

Fine Gael Cllr John Buttimer, who is also a member of the HSE South regional forum, welcomed the latest developments. But he said it is essential that funding is provided.

“Given the proximity of the CUH to the south-east and south-west coasts, it is essential that helicopters which are capable of long distance flight can land on the grounds of CUH, thereby eliminating the need for ground transfer by ambulance from Cork Airport to the hospital,” he said.

The hospital, a level one trauma centre and one of only two specialist neurosurgical centres in the country, lost its helipad when a new e15 million emergency department was built over it in 2003.

Critically-ill patients who have been airlifted from other hospitals or fishing vessels have been routinely landed at Cork Airport, over 5km away, before being transferred to the hospital by ambulance.

The arrangement has been likened by helipad campaigners to a 100m sprint — whereby you sprint with the patient flat-out for 90m only, in a desperate attempt to get them to hospital, only to crawl the final 10m.

It emerged, last September, HSE officials had examined the possibility of building a new helipad on the roof of the emergency department.

Engineers have studied the roof to establish whether or not it could take the load of a rescue helicopter. Several other locations on the hospital campus have also been considered.

However, Mark Keane, of CUH’s estates department, told a Bord Pleanála hearing last September that it is international best practice to have helipads located as close as possible to the emergency department.

Health Service Executive officials have also been liaising with the hospital’s emergency medicine consultants and the Irish Aviation Authority about the situation.