Big changes have come to the Maui Memorial Medical Center, changes that will help patients receive the medical care they need faster. On September 22nd, the Maui Memorial Medical Center dedicated a new helipad that will allow faster transportation of patients needing medical care. Located at the west end of the Kahului hospital grounds, the helipad dedication coincides with the new MMMC Cardiac department.
As recently as one year ago, patients requiring relatively straight-forward cardiac procedures were having to go off island, according to interventional cardiologists. However, now thanks to the new acute care cardiac program, and the new helipad to bring in patients faster, Maui residents can receive top-quality cardiac care without having to leave Maui.
Maui Managing Director Keith Regan said, “I guarantee you that in at least the next two or three years, you will have a friend, or family member, or someone that you know whose life has been saved by this building right here, and the helicopter that’s going to be landing there.”
Dr. Joseph Chambers, a member of the new MMMC Cardiac Services Department, added, “We’ve treated over 10 patients in the last month with acute coronary syndromes and I think with this helipad in place we can look forward to that number growing. In five years, we can imagine a network that extends throughout eastern Hawai’i, which is an under-served area.”
MMMC CEO Wes Lo commented, “We used to average about 30 patients we flew off to Honolulu per month for cardiac related conditions. This last month, there were only seven or eight, so we’ve really made an impact on the whole delivery system in one month.”
As the only neighbor island that can treat emergency heart attacks, patients from Hana on the East end of the island have been treated already, and the MMMC will available to patients from Lana’i and Molokai, as well. By landing patients at the hospital’s helipad instead of the War Memorial Complex in Wailuku, 10-15 minutes of critical time can be shaved off patient transportation time, and those saved minutes can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Along with the new helipad and Cardiac Care Department, MMMC has also installed two new generators. After the earthquake in 2006 that left most of the island without power for several hours, MMMC installed two generators, each capable of running power to the entire hospital in the event of a power outage due to earthquake or other event. Of the generators, Managing Director Keith Regan said, “The helipad is great, and the cath-lab is as spectacular as they come, but those two new generators that we just blessed, are really an amazing thing,” adding that the “double redundancy” of the two generators “is so comforting to us.”
With the helipad, new cardiac care department and new generators, MMMC is there to provide medical care to the residents of Maui like never before!
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