By Emily Berry, Staff Writer
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
Copyright 2006 Chattanooga Publishing Company
State officials have given Memorial Hospital the go-ahead to activate a new helipad next to its main campus.
“We’re hoping any minute now” the first patient will arrive at Memorial Hospital by helicopter, Diona Brown, executive director of cardiac care for Memorial Hospital, said Thursday.
She said the state issued approval to use the helipad Monday after a final check of the concrete pad last week.
The hospital has notified air ambulance services in the area and physicians who practice there, Ms. Brown said.
Unlike Erlanger hospital, which has its own air ambulance service called LifeForce, Memorial Hospital won’t operate its own helicopter service, and instead will accept patients transported by independent companies’ aircraft, she said.
Hospital projections call for an average of two landings each day at the helipad, Ms. Brown said.
Erlanger hospital remains the city’s trauma center, so patients who have been injured in accidents or burned will continue to be transported there.
Memorial’s helipad will bring in patients who need to be treated for heart attacks, stroke or other medical conditions that need to be addressed very quickly, Ms. Brown said.
The helipad is north of the main Glenwood Avenue campus, near the former tuberculosis hospital and adjacent to where hospital officials say they hope to build two new medical buildings.
Marva Nelson, president of the Glenwood Neighborhood Association, said she and her neighbors are resigned to living near the helipad.
“I can’t say 100 percent of the neighbors are happy about it, but I think they have accepted it,” she said.