UHG helipad costs are sky high

Galway’s largest public hospital spent more than three times the amount it had budgeted for to upgrade a helipad to facilitate helicopter landings, it emerged this week.

The cost to University Hospital Galway of upgrading the surface of the helipad at the city hospital was quoted as €17,700 in March 2010.

But when the works were finished, the final cost of the job turned out to be €73,000. The variance in cost was because the ‘job spec’ was changed to include more works.

Galway City Councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG) lambasted hospital management for the overrun and said that similar expenditure in the private sector would not be tolerated.

“You’d be fired if you did that in the private sector, but when it’s public money you don’t give a rattling damn about it. You just spend it as you wish. You have to be conscious about how you spend money. It is public money. You find money for this, but we’re told there’s no money for patients,” said Cllr Conneely.

He asked if the work had been put out to tender, or are “jobs being handed out at will?”

Tony Canavan, chief operating officer of Saolta University Health Care Group, which includes UHG, said because the works required were considered “emergency”, different procurement rules applied.

Mr Canavan also defended the additional cost of the helipad compared with the initial estimate. He said severe weather over two consecutive winters badly damaged the helipad. In March 2010, the Air Corps suspended helicopter landings due to concrete debris becoming airborne.

“There was an immediate and urgent need to address the matter. Costs were obtained for the resurfacing works of €17,700,” he said.

Advice was sought from the HSE’s regional estates function and an outside expert in relation to helipad standards.

“The advice recommended that the size of the helipad be increased in order to accommodate the requirements of the new larger helicopters which were being used by the emergency service in line with current standards.”

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune