Planning to be sought for helipad at CUH as €1.8m funding secured

Health chiefs are poised to seek planning for a helipad at Cork University Hospital.

A spokesperson for CUH confirmed yesterday that it anticipates an application for the long-awaited facility will be submitted to Cork City Council’s planning department next month.

Confirmation that an application is almost ready comes after a detailed site evaluation process, the securing of some €1.8m in funding, and input from medical experts and specialist aviation consultants.

There have been several missed target dates for delivery of the facility, which was decommissioned in 2003 to facilitate a massive redevelopment of CUH’s emergency department. Construction of a landing facility on the roof of the new department was ruled out at the time on budgetary, aviation, and engineering grounds.

The hospital has been without a helipad since.

In the early years, helicopters transferring patients to CUH landed at Cork Airport, from where patients were transferred by ambulance to CUH. In more recent years, Irish Coast Guard and Air Corps medevac helicopters have been landing on a designated site on one of Bishopstown GAA club’s pitches nearby, from where patients are then transferred by ambulance the short distance to CUH.

Consultants say the fewer transfers a patient has to endure, the better the outcome is for the patient.

Aviation consultants some time ago selected a site in the north-eastern corner of the CUH campus, currently used as a car park, as being suitable for a helipad.

The site complies with strict clinical requirements and aviation regulations and is suitable for the Irish Air Corps’ Augusta Westland 139 and Eurocopter 135 and the Coast Guard’s S92 search-and-rescue helicopter.

aircraft

In a report in 2016, CUH chiefs said they hoped a helipad would be operational by the end of 2017. It emerged in May 2017 that preliminary design works were still in progress and talks between the helipad design team and the Irish Aviation Authority had been continuing.

It led to criticism from Fine Gael councillor John Buttimer over the lack of progress on the project.

Last night, he said he is satisfied that everything is now in place for a planning application to be lodged.

“We were told the project design has been agreed and that consultation has been finalised and a planning application is imminent,” said Mr Buttimer.

CUH is the largest trauma hospital in the country and there is a requirement for a helipad on the site.

“I would hope there would be recognition locally of the need for this facility.

“I would now look for talks between CUH and local residents about whatever mitigation measures might be needed to minimise disturbance.”