HSE to spend €1.8 million on new Cork hospital helipad

The HSE has confirmed that it is to make €1.8 million available for the construction of a helipad at Cork University Hospital (CUH) to facilitate an air ambulance service directly into the hospital.

The helipad is due to be completed and operational by December 2017.

CUH General Manager, Tony McNamara told a HSE South Regional Health Forum that a site had been identified for the helipad which would allow a helicopter carrying emergency cases and transfer patients to land on the campus of the Cork hospital.

CUH previously had a helipad on the roof of the old emergency department but it was closed in 2003 when the emergency department was redeveloped and helicopters have since been landing with emergency cases at either Bishopstown GAA pitch or Cork Airport with road transfers to CUH.

“The HSE has identified the requirement to re-establish an on-site helipad as a priority for the hospital and the region it serves,” said Mr McNamara in a report which showed that CUH had 65,000 emergency department attendances per annum.

A 2009 report recommended the closure of emergency departments in Bantry and Mallow General Hospitals with and it was envisaged that "acute care in remote and rural areas would be delivered through a combination of changes in ambulance care and the introduction of an air ambulance".

There are “significant cohorts of patients who will need emergency care services within time sensitive periods,” said Mr McNamara, adding that an air ambulance service would also facilitate the rapid transfer of patients to other specialist centres such as paediatric hospitals in Dublin.

The benefits of the air ambulance service was highlighted last week when three children, all under the age of two who were injured when a petrol can ignited at their home Drinagh in West Cork, were airlifted by helicopter to Cork Airport and then brought the 8 km by ambulance to CUH.

Mr McNamara confirmed the HSE had approached an independent aviation consultant to look at the feasibility of providing a helipad at CUH and they had identified a suitable site at a staff car park in the north eastern corner of the campus and CUH would now apply for planning permission.

HSE Regional Forum member Cllr John Buttimer of Fine Gael welcomed the announcement by the HSE that it had identified a suitable site for the new helipad and that it had allocated €1.8 million from its capital budget for the facility.

“What we are being told now is that the current staff car park has been identified as a suitable site and we’re hopeful that it will give leeway for the larger helicopters to land and that will be important for people going for transplants, coastal rescues and long range rescues as well,” he told Cork’s 96FM.