A new helipad at Bluewater Health in Sarnia has already been used six times by air ambulance helicopters transferring patients to Toronto and London since it was approved for daytime use in November.
A new helipad at Bluewater Health in Sarnia has already been used six times by air ambulance helicopters transferring patients to Toronto and London since it was approved for daytime use in November.
“Getting patients care they need faster really supports improving health outcomes for patients,” Laurie Zimmer, the hospital’s vice-president of clinical services, told Lambton County councilors Wednesday.
The county provided $400,000 of the $912,000 the Bluewater Health Foundation was given the job of raising to build the helicopter landing pad on land where a high school track and sports field once sat along East Street, just across a parking lot from the Sarnia hospital.
Construction of the helipad was completed in October, Jack Vanderveen, director of facilities and support services for Bluewater Health, told council.
He said the hospital is currently waiting for approval from Transport Canada for night landings and takeoffs.
Preparations for the helipad project began in 2017, Zimmer said.
“It has been a journey,” she said.
“We’re very much looking forward to our nighttime certification. Hopefully very soon we’ll be able to fly 24-7.”
Transferring patients by air ambulance is faster than conventional ambulances traveling by road, and also means doctors and nurses accompanying patients are back in Sarnia quicker, and that paramedics can remain in the community, Zimmer said.
“Hours are saved” and it keeps “local resources local,” she said.
Zimmer spoke about some of the air ambulance transfers that have used the helipad, so far.
“We had a 72-year-old fellow with a heart attack,” she said. “We feel him to London and he has done very, very well.”
There was also a six-year-old with multi-system organ failure and complications transferred by air to Sick Kids hospital in Toronto, as well as a 62-year-old respiratory infection patient also taken to Toronto, Zimmer said.
They were “very, very critical patients that need those higher levels of care,” she said.
“Minutes matter for patients.”
Kathy Alexander, executive director of the Bluewater Health Foundation, told councilors the county’s $400,000 donation “really was the catalyst for our fundraising campaign,” which “quite honestly couldn’t have been successful without your support.”
Alexander said the campaign’s goal has been reached.
Along with the county, the Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital Foundation in Petrolia gave $100,000 and some of the funds raised by the current Dream Home Lottery are also being used for the helipad project, she said.
“Community support has been essential for making this happen,” Alexander said.