Helicopters from the Irish Air Corps, HSE and Irish Coast Guard have been practising landings this week at the new helipad at Cork University Hospital. The first visit was on Monday from HSE Air Ambulance EC135 (9H-SEC) followed by the Irish Air Corps AW139 (279). On Tuesday, Rescue 117, the Waterford-based Search and Rescue Helicopter (Sikorsky S-92A EI-ICS) made its first landing on the new helipad. The hospital has been without a helipad for over 20 years following the decommissioning of the original helipad in 2003.
Planning permission for the helipad at the hospital was granted in July 2019. Further works are still to take place including a covered walkway between the helipad and the hospital. It’s expected that the first operational flights could take place as early as this weekend. Initially, the helipad will operate during daylight hours but night-time operations are planned in future when the related construction work has been completed.
CUH Chief Executive David Donegan said: “The helipad on the hospital campus is a major improvement in access to and from CUH, with patients now being able to receive their life saving care within 10 minutes of landing, dramatically reducing the times it currently takes when the helicopters need to land either at local GAA grounds or at Cork Airport”.
“CUH is Ireland’s only Model 4 specialist hospital, with every surgical and medical speciality co-located on one campus, and capable of caring for every age group.”
Photos supplied by Gabriel Desmond.
