Irish Coast Guard Helicopters not licensed to land on helipads ?

Psychlops

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

Does any existing hospital have a dedicated helipad that can accommodate the S92? This seems like the typical fake news negative PR that is so popular at the moment.

UH Galway has 2, Tralee, Letterkenny, Sligo, Castlebar, Limerick.

Psychlops

S92 can land at the following Hospitals:

Letterkenny, Altnagelvin (NI), Enniskillen (NI), Sligo, Castlebar, UH Galway ( 2 Pads , 1 in use but both used not that long ago at same time for IRCG & EAS ), Limerick, Tralee, Tallaght Hospital, Newry Hospital & Craigavon (NI).

Other than that there are Surveyed Landing Sites approved for Day & Night, & other than that its landing at Scene & they train exactly for that especially confined areas.

ED E

Psychlops wrote: »

S92 can land at the following Hospitals:

Letterkenny, Altnagelvin (NI), Enniskillen (NI), Sligo, Castlebar, UH Galway ( 2 Pads , 1 in use but both used not that long ago at same time for IRCG & EAS ), Limerick, Tralee, Tallaght Hospital, Newry Hospital & Craigavon (NI).

Other than that there are Surveyed Landing Sites approved for Day & Night, & other than that its landing at Scene & they train exactly for that especially confined areas.

They've 4000+ PDLZs apparently so there's usually something close at scene but if you need an ambo both ends it slows the process.

ectoraige

Psychlops wrote: »

S92 can land at the following Hospitals:

Letterkenny, Altnagelvin (NI), Enniskillen (NI), Sligo, Castlebar, UH Galway ( 2 Pads , 1 in use but both used not that long ago at same time for IRCG & EAS ), Limerick, Tralee, Tallaght Hospital, Newry Hospital & Craigavon (NI).

Other than that there are Surveyed Landing Sites approved for Day & Night, & other than that its landing at Scene & they train exactly for that especially confined areas.

I'm open to correction, but ICG haven't been able to land at Sligo for some time now, I believe some fencing beside the landing area that rendered it unsuitable for the S92s. They land at their base in Strandhill and a NAS ambulance has to meet them there.

Stovepipe

Back in Alouette days, the entire country was surveyed for helicopter landing sites so that the Air Corps, as the then agency for SAR, could land on decent pads instead of GAA pitches or car parks and in a great rush of enthusiasm, lots of pads were built. A lot of agencies were involved; Army, Air Corps, Naval service, RNLI, Gardai, Fire brigade, and myriad Govt departments. Just think of the interdepartmental fighting that generated, despite being a genuinely worthy initiative................................Unfortunately, a lot of the pads were badly built, badly maintained and quite a lot were poorly located, being variously surrounded by trees, wires, fences, buildings, sloped too much, perpetually wet, too soft, too close to major and minor power lines and so on. Another factor is the growth of telecoms masts; they are absolutely everywhere and in some cases, the agency responsible didnt think about the users of nearby helipads and inform them so that more than one heli pilot has had a good fright from encountering an unknown mast. Also, pads built and sized for the Alouette III were not suitable for anything bigger, such as the S-61, Wessex, Puma, S-92 and others. As for rooftop heli pads, a big helicopter will shake that pad and building so there is a reason why a lot of rooftop pads are limited to smaller helicopters.

Psychlops

The Helipad at Waterford Hospital was built for the Alouette, the Air Corps have posted pictures of the EAS AW139 on that pad at Waterford & it just about fits!

S92 has to land at the Rugby Pitch beside the Hospital.

As Stovepipe said that's what happened, same for the majority of Irish Lighthouses, all built with the Alouette in mind & nothing bigger.

Back in the 80's & onwards in Galway they had the one pad only & it was Alouette sized & unlit, AFAIK I remember Ambulances with flashing lights on & Ambulance headlights shinging on the pad at night whenever a Dauphin was coming in from the Islands or from a vessel off the West Coast.

eusap

I wonder how many children are taken by the coast guard each year to a hospital?

Tallaght Hospital have a Helipad on the ground but even there they drive the last 200ft by ambulance

jasper100

eusap wrote: »

I wonder how many children are taken by the coast guard each year to a hospital?

If a child falls off a cliff or is in a car crash I presume they will be brought to the nearest hospital for emergencies, and not directly to the childrens hospital.

Most transfers by helicopter of children would presumably be by appointment from another hospital and not be particularly urgent, so to answer your question, I would think it would be very unusual to have the S92 deliver a critically ill patient to the childrens hospital, where travelling the last bit road would have saved their life.

ED E

AC 274 operating as 112 landed at The Mater car park turned pad earlier today.

ectoraige

jasper100 wrote:

If a child falls off a cliff or is in a car crash I presume they will be brought to the nearest hospital for emergencies, and not directly to the childrens hospital.

Actually, that's not really best international practice. In serious trauma cases, you really should be bypassing the nearest hospital and bringing the casualty to a specialist trauma facility instead.

Unless ED doctors and surgeons have an opportunity to carry out particular procedures on a regular basis, they lose competence to the point that they are no longer able to provide the best care. In order to make sure they have the appropriate volume of cases you have to centralise them into top-level hospitals. This does mean that some patients have to travel further, but if they can survive until hospital, they have a far better chance of leaving it alive.

In practical terms, Ireland should only really have at most three top-level trauma hospitals to which the most serious cases are brought directly to. Paedriatics is even more specialised, and lower volume, so it actually does make sense to just bring them direct to the children's hospital.

This really is the direction Ireland has to go to, with level one facilities in say Dublin, Cork, and Galway, and Emergency Departments throughout the rest of the country reduced to treating non-life-threatening injuries, and a better air ambulance service and ground ambulance network to reduce response times.

Politically though, it's hard to cut local health services because people expect their local hospital to be able to do everything, no matter how realistic it is.

RadioRetro

ED E wrote: »

AC 274 operating as 112 landed at The Mater car park turned pad earlier today.

That was a test recovery and all seems to have gone well.

Psychlops

jasper100 wrote: »

If a child falls off a cliff or is in a car crash I presume they will be brought to the nearest hospital for emergencies, and not directly to the childrens hospital.

Most transfers by helicopter of children would presumably be by appointment from another hospital and not be particularly urgent, so to answer your question, I would think it would be very unusual to have the S92 deliver a critically ill patient to the childrens hospital, where travelling the last bit road would have saved their life.

The closest hospital is not always the best.

ted1

elperello wrote: »

The fact remains that if the children's hospital had been built on a less restricted site it could have been designed to be accessible to all helicopters.

But less accessible to the consultants who work the national hospital at James’s

Peregrine

ED E wrote: »

RE The Mater

DCC Planning 3212/16
And
http://www.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00587643.pdf

Are an interesting read. DCC granted them perms to build a ground pad until they can build a new wing with the supports for a helipad included.

As above, pads > carparks.

It was used today.





https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2726149537412652&id=148942718466693

ED E

And 2 days ago....