The government has called a magisterial inquiry over a parked car that blocked the helipad at St Luke’s Hospital on Saturday, as a medical crew were waiting to board a helicopter and bring a patient from Gozo.
Times of Malta has learnt that the patient was 58-year-old Gozitan businessman Ino Attard, who died on Sunday from a severe brain haemorrhage following a stroke.
Though Mater Dei authorities would not confirm that he was the patient being flown in, citing data protection, they insisted the incident had no impact on his treatment.
The car parked on the helipad, a rental silver Ford Focus, meant the helicopter did not take off from the Armed Forces of Malta airwing in Luqa to pick up the medics en route before heading to Gozo.
Instead, the medical crew had to be driven to Luqa to catch the chopper from there.
The flight took about two-and-a-half hours from the time the hospital received the request for the patient’s evacuation at around 5.15am. In comments to this newspaper, Mater Dei CEO Joe Caruana said this was “well within the normal parameters”.
Moreover, the patient in this particular case was still not in a condition to fly by the time the helicopter reached the Gozo hospital and needed to be stabilised before they could leave.
‘Any delay wouldn’t have made difference to his care’
Clinical director Joseph Zarb Adami said even if there had been a delay, it would have not made a difference.
“But this does not mean that we are in any way trying to excuse this or that we view it less seriously.”
Mr Attard, an energetic businessman who co-owned the Ta’ Frenċ group, died early on Sunday morning from what sources say was a massive haemorrhage.
The St Luke’s Hospital helipad is being used instead of the one at Mater Dei due to construction taking place at the Msida hospital, involving tower cranes too close to the landing site.
On Saturday, as normally happens, a crew of medics and officials from the hospital was at St Luke’s helipad at 5.40am, well before the helicopter arrived.
Officials from the hospital’s fire department, whose job it is to ascertain that the landing site is safe, raised the alarm about the parked car.
We are not in any way trying to excuse this or mean that we view it less seriously
At that point it was decided that the crew should board the aircraft at Luqa. They flew to Gozo and returned some two hours later, landing at St Luke’s, which had since been cleared of the vehicle, at 7.40am.
The details of the case and how the car got inside the helipad are still being established.
The situation is complicated by the fact several different organisations are responsible for the site.
The helipad is sectioned off with chain and watched by a security guard, who is under the responsibility of the St Luke’s Hospital management.
However, Malta Enterprise, which took over a block previously belonging to the hospital, is responsible for a large surrounding area and an adjacent car park with separate security.
The involvement of so many people appears to have created some communication breakdown as the information released in the first Health Department statement on the matter yesterday was full of inaccuracies.
The incident happened at around 6am not 6pm, the time given in the statement, and the patient was not on board the chopper when the aircraft was meant to land.
In fact, the helicopter was nowhere near the helipad when it was re-diverted to the AFM’s helipad. In its statement yesterday morning, the department also said that the patient was flown back to Gozo and then returned when the helipad was clear.