An Alberta judge is calling on Alberta Health Services to restore emergency helipad access at the Fort McMurray hospital to improve patient safety.
Judge James Jacques called on AHS to restore helicopter landings at the hospital "with all due haste" after the landings were discontinued a decade ago.
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Jacques's comments appear in the final report of a fatality inquiry into the death of Ge Genbao at the CNRL Horizon oilsands construction site in 2007. The Chinese worker died after a storage tank he was working on collapsed.
AHS says it expects the helipad will offer easy access to the hospital’s emergency department, operating room and intensive care unit. (David Thurton/ CBC)
A ground ambulance rushed Genbao to hospital 85 kilometres away in Fort McMurray but he died on the way.
A March inquiry examined whether a faster mode of transportation should have been used. Alberta Justice published the final report Wednesday.
"There are many circumstances under which rapid helicopter transport to the hospital would contribute greatly to the saving of lives," Jacques wrote in the report.
"Time is a critical factor in emergency care, and the current necessity of taking patients to the helicopter base, and thereafter transporting them by ground ambulance to the hospital, wastes crucial minutes."
CNRL faced 29 charges for the incident, all of which were stayed or postponed.
Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Ltd. faced 21 charges, all of which were withdrawn. The company's subsidiary, SSEC Canada, faced three charges and was forced to pay $1.5 million in penalties in 2013.
The inquiry determined Genbao died after air collected between his lung and chest wall. The report said his injuries were so severe it is unlikely that a helicopter would have saved his life.
Helipad in the works
Steve Rees, senior program officer for capital management at AHS, said the health authority has already begun implementing the inquiry's recommendation.
"As far as the recommendation — going to quickly get the helipad built — [we] absolutely agree," Rees said. "We've been working on this for quite some time."
In April, AHS announced it would begin construction of a helipad at the hospital by the end of the year and finish by the end of 2018.
Paul Spring, president and CEO of the Helicopter Emergency Response Organization in Fort McMurray, said he will believe AHS when he can land his helicopter at the hospital.
Paul Spring is president and CEO of the Helicopter Emergency Response Organization which oversees air ambulance services in Fort McMurray and the Wood Buffalo region. (David Thurton/ CBC)
"We've been told it was going to be built on multiple occasions before this one," Spring said. "Maybe this will be the actual impetus to actually see it through and actually finish this time."
Spring said his pilots and paramedics will continue to land at the airport and then make the 20 to 30 minute drive to the Fort McMurray hospital until the helipad is completed.
"Look around Alberta [and] find another place with the [same] activity level," Spring said. "They all have helipads. They had them for decades. Why didn't we have one?"
Spring said the air ambulance service is also used to help traffic accident victims and people with health problems in remote Indigenous communities.
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