Water woes affect hospital chopper pad
HALIFAX — The helicopter landing pad on top of the Halifax Infirmary is out of commission due to water woes at the province’s largest hospital that could hamper firefighting in the event of a chopper crash.
EHS LifeFlight has been using its alternative landing location at the Point Pleasant Park helipad since a water line break earlier this month in the hospital’s steam plant resulted in the loss of water and steam for the Infirmary, the Veterans Memorial and Abbie J. Lane buildings, as well as the hospital power plant.
“The landing spot on top of the Halifax Infirmary is currently unavailable due to an inability to provide a highpressure water response in the event of an emergency,” Brendan Elliott, who speaks for N.S. Health, said Friday in an email.
‘UNFORTUNATE CONSEQUENCE’
“This is an unfortunate consequence of the broken water main line in the steam plant that occurred earlier this month. The helipad will be out of commission for the immediate future.”
EHS is using the Point Pleasant Park helipad near the South End container terminal in the interim, Elliott said.
“That is routinely used when the Halifax Infirmary helipad is unavailable and there are procedures in place for the swift transfer of patients from the park to the hospital.”
One emergency room staffer said using the park landing pad and then loading patients into an ambulance can add half an hour to the time it takes getting them to the Infirmary.
"Is it a nuisance? Absolutely. Is it a disaster? Usually not," said the staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Short delays shouldn't make a huge difference, according to the staffer.
"Many of the helicopter transfers are more to minimize the time that the patient spends out of a hospital environment and have a critical care team in attendance than a hurry to get the patient to Halifax quickly. Lots are stable but coming for specialized treatment — especially traumas transferred from smaller hospitals."
'ALREADY HAVING A BAD DAY'
Occasionally cases, many of them aortic injuries or "other vascular catastrophes," go straight from the roof to the operating room, said the staffer.
While those "are exquisitely time-dependent," there are often times they can’t land on the roof due to weather, said the staffer.
"So it could have a big impact but usually doesn’t. From a Lifeflight point of view not having (access to the helipad on top of the Infirmary) really slows down the turnaround between missions so the subsequent transfer gets delayed.
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The extra transfer from the park is also less comfortable for the patient who is already having a bad day."
Remo Zaccagna, who speaks for EHS, said “it takes, on average, about 5-10 minutes to transport a patient from the Point Pleasant Park helipad to either the IWK or Halifax Infirmary. It is important to note that the patient remains in the excellent care of our EHS LifeFlight critical care teams throughout the duration of the transport.”
EHS uses the helipad at Point Pleasant Park as a backup to the Infirmary and IWK sites about 95 times per year, Zaccagna said in an email.
‘NOT AN OPTION’
“The (Point Pleasant Park) site is used when landing at the other facilities is not an option for a number of reasons, which include weather, construction, maintenance work or operational considerations,” Zaccagna said in an email.
This isn’t the first time the hospital has had chopper problems.
In 2016, the province had to use the Point Pleasant Park landing site for months while it obtained two newer-model helicopters to transport critically ill patients after Transport Canada banned Nova Scotia's emergency helicopter from rooftop hospital landings. At the time, Transport Canada said the Sikorsky S-76A didn’t have the certification level required to land on hospital helipads in densely populated areas.