May 25 , 2007

                  Helipad Proposal Met by Strong Opposition at City Hall Meeting
                                                                       
                                                           By Kerry Fleisher

The debate over whether to construct a helipad at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) escalated to new heights last month when the San Francisco Planning Commission opened the floor to public comment at one of its weekly meetings.  At 11 p.m. on a Thursday night, ten hours after the meeting started and following a SFGH briefing on its plans to rebuild the hospital, close to twenty individuals rose to speak on the sensitive topic.  Most of the speakers were Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill and Mission residents, who voiced their opposition to the helipad.  The display of public resistance to the project prompted the planning commissioners to reevaluate existing requirements for its approval.
Helipad critics cited noise pollution, helicopter safety, overcrowded emergency rooms, and the University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) proposed helipad landing at its new children’s hospital in Mission Bay as reasons to reject the $5.7 million project.  The planning commissioners responded to the speakers’ concerns by insisting that SFGH produce better information about potential helicopter-related noise pollution and develop a thorough analysis of how existing helipads located in other dense urban areas – including in Baltimore, Boston and New York City -- have impacted nearby residents as part of the project’s environmental impact report, which is due out this summer.
Anna Brook Temple, a Potrero Hill resident, is concerned that the helipad might contribute to overcrowding at SFGH’s emergency facilities, further displacing uninsured individuals with wealthier patients from other regions.  “[The helipad] might displace San Franciscans at General Hospital and be a misallocation of scarce resources,” she said.  Several commissioners echoed Temple’s fear, saying that they were hard-pressed to see how the helipad, as part of a public hospital, would benefit San Francisco taxpayers as opposed to out-of-City residents.
Lynn Eggers, of Bernal Heights, who’s worked as a registered nurse and clinician in San Francisco for 35 years, stated that helicopters “seldom if ever would be utilized to transfer people to trauma sites within San Francisco,” based on her experience.  Judy Bergmann, from the New Mission Terrace Improvement Association, pointed-out that most helicopters in the East Bay are based in Concord, and no helicopters are currently based in San Francisco.
“Where on earth is this helicopter going to land in the City?” one commissioner ventured, after asking how many of the alleged three flights a day might be used for non-trauma cases or organ transfers inside San Francisco.  “It’s not gonna land in North Beach and Chinatown, that’s for sure,” he added.
            Helicopter accident rates were another hot-button issue.  Potrero Hill resident Christopher Saber asserted that emergency management services-related helicopter accident rates have risen in recent years, prompting safety reviews, and Del Gregor, another Potrero Hill resident, read excerpts from a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “Air Ambulances Are Under Fire.”  A commissioner similarly pointed-out that San Francisco police officers had limited helicopter use after a fatal crash in 2000.
Eggers complained about plans for helipads at SFGH, a level one trauma center, and UCSF Children’s Hospital, a level two trauma center located just a mile away.  According to Eggers level two centers don’t provide less quality care than level one facilities, but offer the “same in-depth medical service” and are simply not “affiliated with accredited medical training programs and related research programs.”  Based on Eggers’ comments several commissioners requested additional information regarding the precise differences between level one and level two trauma centers.
            Although most speakers voiced their opposition to the helipad, a handful of individuals noted their support for the project.  Robert Mackersie, professor of surgery at SFGH, stated that the helipad would be an indispensable asset to the hospital since it would allow San Francisco to participate in a larger regional trauma structure.  And in a large-scale emergency, such as an earthquake or terrorist attack, a helipad would serve to help City neighborhoods cope because it could raise SFGH’s “surge capacity for disasters.”
Most speakers, however, did not believe that creating “surge capacity” was SFGH’s prime motivation to develop a helipad.  Tom Casey, a homeowner who would be directly under the flight pattern of the proposed helipad, spoke on behalf of many of his neighbors when he said that he believed some of the hospital’s arguments in favor of the project have been “disingenuous” to “increase revenue stream at San Francisco General by transporting patients in.”  This would be an affront to the hospital’s current mission statement, he said, which is “to serve the residents in San Francisco.”