MELFORT — Melfort Council received an update on the proposed Melfort Hospital Heliport during their monthly meeting.
Many communities have heliports already in their communities, said Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor during the May 4 meeting, and city council has been working on it substantially longer than many of said communities.
“We're at that point now where it appears that the fundraising is substantial enough to go to tender and so that's what we were doing,” Lang said.
According to the city website, STARS landed in Melfort 25 times in 2019. For the year ending on March 31, 2018, “STARS transferred 13 patients from Melfort, Air Ambulance transported 23 patients and ground ambulance transferred 15 urgent cases.”
As of right now, patients are being transferred to Saskatoon, a two-hour ambulance ride depending on roads and weather.
Having the heliport available at the time of emergency can contribute much to saving a person’s life.
“In situations where STARS is utilized, one hour is more than substantial with respect to saving a life,” Lang said.
The landing area would be a certified Stars landing site for the transfer of patients out of the Melfort Hospital emergency department, said the website.
Lang does not know when the discussion started about the heliport, but he said it was back when Kevin Phillips was mayor, meaning discussion has been going on 10 years without the heliport being installed.
“There was a desire for the Council of the day to try to improve health care, to a degree where it was substantially improved and so that's why Melfort started at that point in time to explore the idea of a heliport. Partially from a time saving perspective also from an improved healthcare perspective.”
