A day after the government ordered a magisterial inquiry to find out how a car was allowed to block a hospital helipad, Times of Malta managed to park a vehicle right in the middle of the landing site, completely unhindered.
Fresh signs have been put up since Saturday’s incident, indicating that the site, at St Luke’s Hospital, is a helicopter landing area and that motorists should not park their vehicles there or obstruct the entrance. However, there was nobody yesterday to enforce that order in case someone decided to ignore the signs.
The St Luke’s helipad site is being temporarily used instead of the one at Mater Dei Hospital because tower cranes there are involved in the construction of a new extension. It abuts a Malta Enterprise car park, which is meant to be guarded by the agency’s own security.
The landing site is also meant to be taken care of by the hospital’s security but nobody was around yesterday.
Despite the whole area being littered with security cameras, Times of Malta drove a car right through the Malta Enterprise entrance – where there is no gate – past quite a few people and then again through the helipad’s entrance. The car was stationary in the middle of the helipad for some minutes, long enough to take a few pictures at a leisurely pace, before it was driven away.
There is a barrier at the exit of the Malta Enterprise car park, which automatically rises when a car approaches from the inside.
Before reaching the agency building, at the rear end of the hospital grounds, one first has to go through St Luke’s gate, which is manned. However, the gates are permanently open and the person inside a sentry box does not stop visitors.
In a reaction, the Office of the Prime Minister said the government was in the process of implementing a number of changes that range from securing the area more effectively to establishing which entity is responsible for the site.
However, a spokesman for the government still acknowledged it was “unacceptable that someone (in this case Times of Malta) managed to trespass the helipad”. Besides the magisterial inquiry, he said, in the past 24 hours the government had given instructions for the area to be secured and signage to be put up.
It has also set up an inter-ministerial project team to review current operating procedures (in place since 2012) for the helipad, which will make clearer the chain of accountability across the various entities involved – Malta Enterprise, Malta Industrial Parks, Health Department and AFM. The review should ensure that such incidents never occur again, he said, emphasising that at present, the security procedures for the landing site only kick in the minute there is an emergency.
On Saturday, an AFM helicopter preparing to evacuate a patient from Gozo could not use the helipad because a car was parked there. The aircraft was scrambled to take a medical team to Gozo to assist businessman Ino Attard, 58, who eventually died on Sunday from a severe brain haemorrhage following a stroke.
In the circumstances, the medical team was driven to the AFM Air Wing in Luqa where it boarded the helicopter. The patient was still not in a condition to fly by the time the aircraft landed in Gozo, because he had to be stabilised first.
Mater Dei CEO Joe Caruana said on Monday the hospital authorities took the case very seriously.
The silver Ford Focus involved in Saturday’s incident was rented by Malta Enterprise. The name of the person who parked it there was not released in view of the pending inquiry. The vehicle was not on the helipad but on the side, blocking the entrance. Nonetheless, Mater Dei’s fire safety personnel felt it still posed a risk.