HSE to arrange helicopter landings near Cork hospital

The HSE South today confirmed that it hopes to have an interim arrangement in place within six weeks to allow helicopters with casualties land close to Cork University Hospital to allow patients be transferred to the emergency department within two minutes.

The hospital had a helipad on the rooftop of its old emergency department but it was removed in 2003 when a new emergency department was built and although the provision was made in the new building for a rooftop helipad, funding was never made available for such a facility.

The absence of a helipad at the hospital has meant that helicopters carrying serious casualties have to land at Cork Airport over 8km away with the casualty then being transferred by road by ambulance with an average journey time of ten minutes.

The issue was raised at the HSE South Regional Forum meeting by Fianna Fail Cllr Mary Shields who said it was unacceptable that CUH as the only Level 1 Trauma Centre in the country should be without helicopter landing facilities for ten years. “The Royal Hospital in London for example has a helipad on its roof and it takes two minutes to get a casualty down to the emergency department- that’s the kind of service we need here in Cork — not a situation where valuable time is lost transferring patients from Cork Airport.”

HSE South Chief Emergency Management Service Officer, Peter Daly said that an arrangement will be finalised shortly to allow Irish Coastguard Sikorski helicopters land on a training pitch at Highfield Rugby Club adjacent to the hospital grounds.

A gate has been installed the boundary wall and a tarmac roadway has been put down linking the landing area to the internal roadway on the CUH campus so that an ambulance will be able to transfer a patient from the helicopter to the emergency department in two minutes.

Mr Daly said that the Irish Coastguard had surveyed the Highfield facility and will carry out test landings there within the next two weeks and he expected that the landing facility at Highfield will be operational within four to six weeks.

Mr Daly explained that the rooftop of the new Emergency Department is structurally designed to accommodate a helipad but the type of Sikorski helicopters used by the Irish Coastguard have not been approved by the manufacturers for rooftop landings.

However the HSE South has asked the design team behind the emergency department to obtain figures for constructing a helipad on the rooftop of the new building which could take smaller Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) type choppers.

Construction of such a helipad would cost €1-2 million and an application will be made for funding in anticipation of a move towards more HEMS type services though the Highfield facility would be retained for Irish Coastguard casualty transfers, said Mr Daly.