Mater will have no air ambulance facility when trauma centre opens

A major new centre for treating severely injured accident victims will be unable to receive patients by helicopter when it opens next year because there is nowhere for them to land.

The Government recently announced the Mater hospital in Dublin as the location for a major trauma centre serving more than three million people, designed to treat victims of severe falls, burns and crashes as quickly as possible.

However, no helipad will be available to the new centre when it opens next March because a temporary landing pad has been covered with buildings needed to treat Covid-19 patients.

While there are plans to build a permanent helipad on the roof of a new trauma building, this has not yet been designed and will take years to complete.

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"The helipad is not operational because some prefabs were built on it for Covid, so we won't have one ready for March," orthopaedic consultant and HSE trauma lead Keith Synnott said.

Planning permission for the existing helipad was granted in 2016, and in 2019 a helicopter landed for the first time at the Mater, which is the national centre for heart and lung transplants, and for spinal injuries.

However, the helipad was never used regularly. As a result, air ambulance missions have to land at Dublin Airport or the Phoenix Park, with onward transport by road.

Extra capacity

One obstacle that had been blocking helicopter flights to the north city hospital has been removed with the ending of a no-flight ban around nearby Mountjoy Prison, according to Mr Synnott. In 1973, three IRA inmates escaped from the prison aboard a hijacked helicopter that landed in the exercise yard.

The hospital confirmed that “some temporary buildings” had been erected on the helipad due to a need for “extra capacity”.

“It is expected the need for this temporary accommodation will lessen in the near future and it is our intention to reinstate the temporary helipad as soon as possible,” a spokeswoman said.

Independent TD and former minister Denis Naughten said the new centre was of little use if patients were unable to access it.

“It was accepted by cabinet in 2018 that the reconfiguration of trauma services should not go ahead until proposed improvements in existing air ambulance services are introduced and additional ground ambulance resources provided,” he said.