10-09-00 Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 9, 2000 transports that cannot be done by air so the hospital is not planning to do every transport by air. The air transport will probably happen once a day. Dr. Okanlami noted that the hospital transports close to three hundred (300) children per year by land. Not all of those will be done by air but a large proportion of those would have had better outcomes if they had been able to get to the hospital sooner. Mr. Bob White, no address given, stated that he is in charge of the newborn intensive care unit at Memorial Hospital. Mr. White stated that he wanted to help the Council understand why locating helicopter access other than immediately at the hospital is impossible for babies. He noted that they have helicopter access now either at WNDU or at the airport and they use that once or twice a year. He further noted that they have fifteen (15) to twenty (20) babies every year who need helicopter transport that they cannot do because of the difficulty in getting them from the hospital to where they have helicopter access now. He noted that when they move a baby from their unit to the ambulance they have to disconnect them from life support apparatus and transport them down to the ambulance, load them in, stabilize them and then transport. In the last three (3) years they have had two (2) babies die just getting from their unit to the ambulance. The only place that they can utilize the helicopter for these patients is right at the hospital. He noted that they lose babies each month now who die because they cannot utilize helicopter access. The noise issue and the other issues that have been brought up are not issues because they do not come close to outweighing the impact of the lives they can save. Dr. Cheryl Wibbens, 16722 Jackson Road, South Bend, Indiana, stated that she is the Emergency Physician at Memorial Hospital. She noted that she did helicopter transports for four (4) years at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and has been the person taking the patient to the hospital as well as the person receiving a patient from a helicopter transport. Dr. Wibbens stated that when you can get to a patient within the first hour of a traumatic injury the limitation of morbidity is greatly diminished. Unfortunately, landing the helicopter elsewhere adds at least twenty (20) minutes to the time it takes to transport the patient. Having to hook and unhook the tubes and lines of patients puts undue risk to patients and trying to land the helicopter at a different site and then transport that patient through the hospital hallways puts both the patient at risk as well as other patients and staff. She noted that as a doctor she wants to land close to the emergency room where there is a trauma surgeon. Trauma is the leading cause of death in ages one (1) to forty -four (44). It is five (5) times more likely to be a cause of death than the next leading cause. Dr. Wibbens stated that to move the transport area off of the requested site away from the emergency room is just not feasible when you are taking about the importance of minutes in these trauma patients. Dr. William Rozzi, 51116 Shamrock Hills Court, Granger, Indiana, stated that his comments are similar to Dr. Wibbens but from an orthopedic perspective. He noted that his patients have multiple fractures and the problem he encounters with a multi -step transport system is that with this type of injury more movement means more trauma and more bleeding. He stated that it does not make sense and it defeats the purpose to fly out, pick up a patient and then put them into an ambulance. If it is going to be done right they have to land at the hospital and he believes Memorial Hospital when they say that this is the only site that will work. Dr. Rozzi urged the Council to vote to put this helistop where Memorial Hospital says it should be located. Dr. Wil Yergler, 18705 New Road, South Bend, Indiana, informed the Council that he is the father of seven (7) children and is a orthopedic surgeon in South Bend as well as the team physician for the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Yergler talked about helicopter use during the war which saved lives and noted that South Bend is the largest city in the Midwest without helicopter service. As an orthopedic surgeon more than fifty per cent (50 %) of his practice is trauma and what is being discussed this evening is life threatening trauma with people dying. Dr. Yergler told the Council of his experience with his son being run over by a bulldozer. His son had a crushed pelvis and had massive internal bleeding. From the time the call was made to 911 until the time he reached Memorial Hospital was forty -four (44) minutes and during that time he almost bled to death. The transport was by ambulance with the red light running and full police escorts and it still took that long. A helicopter could have gotten him there in three (3) minutes. When it became obvious that his son had to be transported to Riley Children's Hospital a helicopter was called in from Rochester, Indiana and he was transported to Indianapolis very quickly. He stated that within the next year