With the opening of the new John R. Oishei Children's Hospital a year away, there are still big parts of the project in the works. Kaleida Health is jumping through the last hoops to put a helicopter pad on top of the complex.Kaleida already has a helipad on top of Buffalo General Medical Center, located on High Street, and one on top of Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo, on Bryant Street. Kaleida spokesman Michael Hughes says it is not practical to land patients on the roof of Buffalo General and then move them across the street to the new Oishei hospital when it opens.
"If we did something like that, you'd have to have an ambulance on stand by. You couldn't roll the stretcher across the street. You'd be going through traffic," Hughes says. "This is time saved, number one, and, number two, it really would be pediatric focused. The one that's atop Buffalo General really has served hundred upon hundreds of cardiac and stroke patients."
That is why the new building should have a new pad. If all of the rules and regulations fall into place, the chopper landing will open when the hospital opens in about a year. Hughes says the new pad would bring patients right to treatment.
"The one over on Bryant Street is affixed to one of the buildings, the Alfiero Building. The new one would be atop Oishei Children's Hospital," he says. "So it would be on the roof with direct access, with an elevator right down to the emergency room."
Hughes says the project is in the last stages of city approval, which has taken several years. The project then requires federal approval so construction workers can put it all together in the spring.
