San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) wants to build a helipad on the Main Building's roof.  SFGH predicts 3 landings and 3 departures a day.  That's 6 helicopter events per 24-hour day, 40% expected between 11pm and 7 am.

SAN FRANCISCO PATIENTS will NOT use helicopter
Helicopters would not be housed at SF General's helipad; they would be kept at the Concord heliport.  If 911 called a helicopter it would take 5-10 minutes to assemble the crew, warm-up engines, take off from Concord.  Then 15-18 minutes air-travel time to San Francisco; so it would take nearly 30 minutes to arrive at an SF emergency site.  Ground ambulance, with average response time under 8 minutes, will continue to provide the best service to San Francisco residents in need of emergency transport.   

WHAT PATIENTS WOULD USE THE HELIPAD?
According to the SFGH Initial Study, the proposed SFGH helipad would primarily be used as a medical transportation hub for stabilized patients, transferring from other California county trauma centers to SFGH and to other San Francisco hospitals.  Many of these patients currently use the SFO airport and should continue to do so.
Only 8% of the predicted 700 flights each year would be rescues from an injury site, most from Bay Area recreational sites or highways.  The 53 predicted rescues per year currently fly to the other Bay Area hospitals with helipads (see map below), and should continue to do so.  Adding another helipad at SF General would not save any additional lives. 

In fact, these other Bay Area Trauma Centers with helipads, are often closer to the rescue scene and ALL are far less crowded than SFGH.  SFGH is San Francisco's only Trauma Center and it is the only SF County Hospital.  But it is so crowded that it is on full ambulance diversion 20 % of the time.  Thus, when local residents (whose tax dollars support SF General) suffer a medical emergency, there is currently 1-in-5 chance that SFGH will be too full to admit them; they often go to St. Luke's, but that emergency room will be closing in 2009.

WHY ADD MORE PATIENTS FROM OTHER COUNTIES? Helicopter transport is very expensive, ($20,000 per helicopter flight), therefore, it is only available to insured or high-income patients.  SFGH hopes to attract  400 such patients, who currently fly to Trauma Centers in Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Jose and Oakland, coming from California counties as far away as Lake Tahoe and the Oregon border.   If these insured patients come to SFGH, their insurance would pay for their stay in our hospital.  The SFGH Feasibility Study cheered this "increased downstream revenue". as would we all, if there were empty beds to fill.  But with a 20% diversion rate, a flood of additional out-of-county patients would further reduce hospital services for local residents.   SFGH's mission is to serve SF's 1.5 million residents and visitors, particularly the low-income and uninsured residents, who must pay for emergency  services if taken to any other hospital. 

If SFGH needs additional funding, admitting richer patients from surrounding counties, thereby reducing emergency services to San Franciscans, is a life-threatening way to increase revenue. 

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In the News: Read the Wall Street Journal article on 'Emergency Medical Helicopters Overuse'.

"Unfortunately, the city of San Francisco has had a history of tragedy in and around the use of helicopters"

Helicopter crash rate is highest in aviation industry
The rate of FATAL CRASHES in helicopter Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operations is higher than the rate for all other categories of aviation.   http://www.alea.org/public/safety/files/2006_EMS_Accident_Study.pdf

Recent Helicopter Crashes:
just the FATAL or the Medical Helicopter crashes in U.S.
(Asterisk* indicates Medical helicopter crash)

July 19, 2008, Price, UT - 3 killed
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=8705257

July 15, 2008, Salesville, ARK - 2 killed, helicopter hits power lines
http://www.ky3.com/news/local/25465364.html

July 4, 2008, Livermore, CA - 2 killed, helicopter hits power lines
 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/04/BA3N11K66A.DTL&tsp=1

*June 29, 2008, Flagstaff, AZ - 2  medical helicopters collide, 7 killed, 3 injured http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/06/30/20080630helicoptercrash0630.html

*June 27, 2008, Ash Fork, AZ - Medical helicopter crashes, 3 injured http://www.abc15.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=a3b8a1b8-5f07-4f6f-ab09-56e9ff29e446

*June 8, 2008, Walker County, TX - Medical helicopter crashes, 4 killed http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hivmN2f8FsdGgTpeir9_dPMK-SKQ

*May 30, 2008, Pottsville, PA - Medical helicopter crashes, 2 injured http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=8405109&nav=5juw

*May 29, 2008, Grand Rapids, MI - Medical helicopter crashes on hospital roof : http://www.wwmt.com/articles/pilot_1349917___article.html/crash_helipad.html

May 25, 2008, Lake of the Ozarks, MO, 1 killed:
http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080527/NEWS01/805270474

*May 10, 2008, La Crosse, WI, 3 killed:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlggrhdigQlDQmaZeT8nBAUWr7RQD90JQNUG0