Source: Radio New Zealand
Life Flight chief executive Mark Johnston and Health Minister Simeon Brown officially open the new aeromedical airbase for the upper north island at Hamilton airport. Libby Kirkby-McLeod
Life Flight’s new aeromedical airbase for the upper North Island has been officially opened by Health Minister Simeon Brown, after quietly operating from a hangar at Hamilton airport since 2024.
The charity began fifty years ago after the founder, Peter Button, witnessed the sinking of the Wahine ferry and felt that a helicopter would have saved lives. It was best known for the Westpac Rescue Helicopters.
The Hamilton hanger is the upper North Island base for two of Life Flight’s air ambulance planes which provide bed-to-bed hospital transfers for critically ill and injured patients.
Life Flight’s board chair, Richard Stone, said that the airbase showed how different sectors could work together to build resilience into the health system.
“This hub is a clear example of what can be achieved when government, the community and corporate partners work together to strengthen health care for all New Zealanders,” he said.
Life Flight’s air ambulance planes which provide bed-to-bed hospital transfers for critically ill and injured patients at the new base in Hamilton Libby Kirkby-McLeod
Health Minister Simeon Brown echoed the focus on partnership.
“Fixed wing and rotary services are critically important to our health care service in New Zealand; transferring patients, providing emergency health care, and making sure everyone, no matter where they are in the country have that access to the tertiary hospitals that are needed,” he said.
Life Flight chief executive Mark Johnston said the planes flew patients around the country to where they can get the best treatment.
“From premature babies to stroke victims, Life Flight is often the only way for them to get to that care in time. Our Waikato airbase is going to provide us with faster access to this urgent care for those patients. It’s going to help us to deliver better outcomes, particularly for rural patients, and provide care to them that’s closer to home,” he said.
Johnston said it was the difference between reaching care in minutes, rather than hours.
Chief pilot for Life Flight Luke Rohloff. Libby Kirkby-McLeod
Chief pilot for Life Flight Luke Rohloff was at the event and said the New Zealand health care system was a hub and spoke service, which relied on a good transportation system for patients to get to services.
The aircraft are fitted out with intensive care equipment to enable transfer of even the most vulnerable patients.
“If you are talking about a baby needing neonatal care, sometimes we’ll see them as early as 25 weeks, and they are very small, and then maybe six months later you might be bringing them home and they’ve grown up and they are outside of the incubator, and that’s really neat,” he said.
Waipa mayor, Mike Pettit, was at the opening and said the service was fundamentally important to Waikato and surrounding regions.
‘It’s super important to keep the regions connected,” he said.
The mayor also had a personal connection to the service as his cousin, Paul Pettit, was one of Life Flight’s pilots.
Mike Pettit said every time he saw the air ambulance he would stop, look up, and tell people he was with that was his cousin up there.
“I know it’s not always Paul!” he said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
