By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: A dual rooftop helipad at Hamad General Hospital (HGH)’s new surgical unit will facilitate patients brought by the air ambulances to reach operation theatre room within a fraction of the time taken previously, said a senior official.
At present it takes around 20 minutes for the patient to reach the operation theatre or Intensive Care Unit (ICU) from the helicopter and it will be reduced to three minutes once the new facility is operational soon, said Ali Darwish, Assistant Executive Director of the Ambulance Service, HMC.
“When a patient is very sick, all we have to do is fly the person from anywhere in Qatar and land here, then pull out of the helicopter, go to the elevator and take down to the operation theatre. It takes like three minutes if the patient is not very heavy and if everything is normal,” he said.
The two new rooftop helipads will be operational in addition to the present one at the HGH and another near Women’s hospital which is used only at case of emergency. Helicopters can land at any helipad round-the-clock and has the lighting facility in the nights as well as fire fighters stay to secure the helicopter landing.
“The comparison between the current helipad and the old one is that at present we bring the patient, take down in the elevator, put the patient in an ambulance and drive to the emergency department, then unload and go into the theatre. With the new helipads the ambulance part is cancelled. It saves like 20 minutes,” said Darwish.
“The two helipads will be operational soon within two or three weeks, when the new surgical facility is operational,” he added.
The helicopters are being primarily used to transport seriously injured persons as quickly as possible from the scene of an emergency to hospital.
Also all detailed information about the patient’s condition will be communicated to the hospital and it will help to prepare a special team to attend the case and they will have all the information prior to the arrival.
“Once the patient is brought here, within three minutes he will be in the theatre rooms or ICU. It helps to can save lives. Because in trauma and injury, time is the essence. That’s what we call it the golden hour, one has to be treated in the first hour or two for recovery,” said Dr Ruben Peralta Rosario Senior Consultant Surgery and Critical Care, HMC.
The air ambulance service at the HMC in 2014 received a boost with three new helicopters joining its LifeFlight operations. Two of the new helicopters, are in operation round-the-clock, and replaced smaller ones previously in use. The third helicopter is on standby as a back-up for the two in service.
The new surgical facility has 17 ultramodern surgical theaters, a 19-bed Trauma Intensive Care Unit, a 15-bed Surgical Intensive Care Unit and three hybrid operating rooms that provide state-of-the-art real-time imaging through CT, MRI, Brain Lab and Artis Zeego imaging technology.
The Peninsula
