Cork hospital helipad approved for patient flights after series of tests

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.

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.

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.

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.