The government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into an incident on Saturday where a car was left parked on the helipad at St Luke’s Hospital preventing a helicopter, which was to transport a stroke victim to Malta from Gozo, from landing.
In a briefing at Castille, hospital officials explained that the helicopter was meant to pick up a medical crew from the St Luke’s Hospital grounds to fly to Gozo, where a patient who had suffered a severe stroke was waiting to be transferred to Mater Dei Hospital. The patient eventually died 24 hours later after being transported to Malta.
The St Luke's Hospital helipad is being used instead of the one at Mater Dei because of potential dangers posed by tower cranes close to the Oncology Centre which is being built.
But as the medical crew reached the helipad, they realised that there was a problem and redirected the helicopter to the AFM helipad in Luqa.
Mater Dei CEO Joe Caruana said that luckily, the incident did not result in any material delays but he said that the hospital authorities were taking the matter very seriously.
“At the end of the day, the trip was well within the normal parameters of such flights,” he said. He also said that the patient in this case was not in a condition to fly by the time the helicopter got to Gozo and had to be stabilised first before they could leave.
Mater Dei Clinical Director Joseph Zarb Adami said that in this particular case, even if there had been a delay, it would not have made a difference to the patient’s condition, although he said he was not excusing the incident in any way.
Earlier in the day, the Health Department said it was investigating the case, and it seems that there were crossed wires.
The incident happened at around 6am not 6pm as said in the original statement and the patient was not on board when the aircraft was meant to land.
In fact, the helicopter was nowhere near the helipad when it was re-diverted to the AFM helipad.
In the original statement, the department also said that the patient was flown back to Gozo and then returned when the helipad was clear. It turns out that it was not the case. There are no less than six bodies involved in the case, from the Emergency Department to Mater Dei, from Malta Enterprise (whose offices are adjacent to the helipad) to AFM.
The aim of the inquiry is not just to identify the culprit who left the car on the helipad and walked away, but also to iron out any glitches in the working between the bodies involved, although they usually work well together, the briefing said.
If it is found that the culprit is an employee of any of the bodies involved, he or she will be immediately suspended from work, the Health Department said.