Cork hospital helipad approved for patient flights after series of tests

Cork University Hospital passed with flying colours after Coast Guard, Air Corps, and Helicopter Emergency Medical Service test landings

The Aero Med 01 air ambulance, crewed by Captain Gerry Morgan and co-pilot Adrian Kenny, and with paramedics Peter Delea and Stephen Galvin on board, was one of three emergency helicopters test landings at CUH's new helipad. 

The new helipad at Cork University Hospital (CUH) has been approved to accept patient flights within days after it passed two days of test flight operations with flying colours.

The approval was signed off by authorities at CUH after they watched one of the Irish Coast Guard’s huge S92 search and rescue helicopters, the Waterford-based Rescue 117 aircraft, land on the helipad on Tuesday.

Its crew conducted patient boarding drills with National Ambulance Service (NAS) paramedics, while the aircraft’s rotors were running.

It was the largest aircraft to land at the hospital campus which has been without a helipad for over two decades.

Irish Coast Guard Sikorsky S-92 helicopter lifting off from the new helipad at Cork University Hospital on Tuesday as tests and training continue prior to the full opening of the hospital helipad. Picture: Larry Cummins

The S92 flight tests followed a series of initial take-offs and landings on Monday involving the HSE and NAS air ambulance, Aeromed 01, which is operated using a smaller EC135 helicopter, and later, flight tests involving an Irish Air Corps AW139 helicopter.

AeroMed01 alone has brought between 120 to 130 patients to CUH annually from emergency medical incidents across its operational range, which stretches from Dingle to Dungarvan, and north to Thurles.

The helipad has been designed to accommodate all three aircraft type, and will support all emergency pathways, including children, critical care, stroke, heart attack, maternity, and major trauma.

Officials and medics met after the S92 departed to debrief the flight and ground operations which were run over the last two days.

One source said “everyone was delighted that everything had gone smoothly”.

They then signed off on the helipad to enter service as a critical piece of medical infrastructure for the south of Ireland.

It could accept its first patient flights by the weekend.

The Irish Air Corps AW139, one of the three helicopters that made test landings at CUH's new helipad this week. 

It will initially operate during daylight hours only but it is expected to become a 24/7 asset within a few weeks, when additional navigational aids are installed on the CUH incinerator tower, which is earmarked for demolition over the coming months.

A formal launch of the facility is expected in a few weeks.

CUH is one of just two level-one trauma centres in the country, and the country’s only Model 4 specialist hospital, with every surgical and medical speciality co-located on one campus.

This week's test flights brought emergency helicopter landings back to Cork University Hospital in Wilton, Cork, for the first time since 2003. Picture: Chani Anderson

Patients will be transferred from the helicopter to a waiting ambulance initially, but a covered bridge will be built over the next three to six months linking the helipad directly to a new resus area in the hospital’s emergency department.

CUH has been without a helipad since 2003, when its original landing pad was decommissioned to make way for a new emergency department building. Since then, helicopters have been airlifting patients to nearby sports pitches for transfer to CUH by ambulance.