 |
 |
Lift designed with patient safety in mind
23/09/05
Tauranga Hospital has asked people to keep in mind that its Clarke St lift has been built specifically to transport sick patients to or from the air ambulance.
Project LEO director James Crawford says there have been a number of queries about why the lift travels so slowly, and why it takes longer than usual for the lift doors to open.
“The primary role of the lift is to transfer patients from the hospital to the air ambulance, or vice versa,” he says. “That’s the reason for the size of the lift car - which is big enough to transport a patient on a trolley and the associated clinicians and medical equipment – and why the lift travels slowly.”
The lift doors also open slowly and remain open for longer than a conventional lift to allow the medical staff ample time to wheel the gurney and patient out of, or into, the lift.
Mr Crawford says patient safety is also the reason for installing a hydraulic, rather than an electrical lift. If there is a power cut, the lift will release slowly and gently to the ground floor after a period. The doors will then open, and remain open, ensuring patient safety is not compromised. When a traditional lift breaks down, it remains locked in position and cannot move up or down until a technician has attended. Mr Crawford says people expect that the lift will operate like a normal lift.
“This is not a conventional high speed lift. The public need to be patient when they are waiting for the lift to arrive, and realise that it will take longer to reach the carpark or the hospital than it would if they were in an electrical lift.”
The distance the lift travels is the equivalent of four floors in a building. Prior to the carpark development, helicopters based in Tauranga and Hamilton landed nearer the 17th Ave end of Clarke St, at the St John Ambulance headquarters, requiring the patient to be transferred along 17th Ave and Cameron Rd to the main hospital via ambulance.
Tauranga Hospital’s acting operations manager Julia Braid says this added 20 to 30 minutes to the time it took to transfer each patient. After the patient was transferred to the hospital, the air transport teams would then require an ambulance to return them and their equipment back to the helipad, tying up an ambulance for an average of 40 minutes for each landing.
“The lift and bridge reduces valuable transport time by providing a safe direct route into the hospital so the patient has faster access to the care they need,” she says. “A purpose-built trolley butts against the side of the helicopter, allowing us to slide the stretcher straight onto the top of it. This means there is no lifting and less manual handling required which also saves time.”