MELFORT — The Melfort STARS heliport is planned to be built by spring and operational in mid-summer if fundraising efforts will allow it.
The location is set to be on a plot of land behind the Melfort Hospital, with Higgins Avenue West to one side of the heliport and West Street to the other side.
“It’s right immediately accessible to the trauma area of the hospital,” said Rod Gantefoer, municipal health advocacy committee member with STARS.
Until now, STARS have been using the Melfort airport and driving to the hospital.
The project business case states that the heliport will reduce time about 34 minutes to get the patient to the Melfort Hospital through STARS.
“It’s going to improve the delivery of emergency health services,” Gantefoer said.
“For the ground ambulance, they got to drive there, they got to go through traffic in the city, you can have a train crossing and slow things up. This is very efficient. If you have a patient that has an emergency heart [problem], stroke or accident, all of those things are really important.”
Gantefoer said STARS makes about 30 to 40 trips per year.
“They’re not as noisy as you think. No different then maybe a big truck or something, if you’re a light sleeper it may wake you up. It doesn’t happen very open.”
Once built, the operating costs will fall under the Saskatchewan Health Authority for about $14,400 per year.
Based on the updated site assessment, capital costs are estimated at about $670,000 to build the heliport, not including optional modifications to save costs such as the elimination of the optimal lighting package. Removing the package has a potential cost savings of $75,000.
Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor, said the project will only use fundraising to fund the costs, and the city has no funds allocated for the project in the capital budget.
“The agreement originally was the heliport would be built strictly on fundraising efforts,” Lang said.
“We have mentioned numerous times to the health advocacy committee that the city is not putting any money into it, that the funds would have to be raised 100 per cent before actual construction will begin. There will be no construction until all the funds are raised.”
