Yes, Times of Malta really should hunt down the owner of the car parked at the hospital helipad
Published:
August 11, 2014 at 9:25pm
Part of the old St Luke’s Hospital serves as the head office of Malta Enterprise, and the only cars permitted to park in the helipad zone (though obviously not blocking it) are those of Malta Enterprise officials.
The police probably won’t be starting a manhunt for the individual who parked on the helipad and made it impossible for a helicopter carrying a patient to land there, so maybe Times of Malta could do it instead.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140811/local/magisterial-inquiry-into-car-blocking-hospital-helipad.531496
There are too many excuses in here. I really cannot understand this statement from the hospital’s CEO:
“In reality, the trip was well within the normal parameters of such flights,”
This was an emergency, for Christ’s sake, so the priority is reaching the patient in the least time possible.
Can someone explain why a patient in an emergency has to stabilise before being carried on an emergency helicopter flight to the nearest hospital?
And The Times should also see who it was who issued that Department of Health statement with inaccurate facts, and why they did so.
This government is proving to be not only incompetent, but outright dangerous and a health hazard.
Do you not realize that the second DH statement is a crude attempt at nullifying the truth that slipped out in the original report. Next we shall be told that no patient died, in the same way that Martin Galea was not abducted, but simply picked up by charitable individuals for his own good.
There is nothing new in such tactics by Labour. Back in 1995-56 when MLP first came into government a private car parked near the entrance of the Upper Barracca caught fire. The fire was extinguished by Times of Malta employees, but the official press release by the government Department of Information had the Malta Police Fire Fighting section gallantly rolling up in their fire engine and the men heroically dousing the flames.
Twenty years later, we had MLP run Xandir Malta news reporting on a little incident when ‘some misguided hotheads’ caused minor damage to the The Times of Malta building, obviously and completely gutted by a pre-meditated arson attack while the police looked on, and a few years later another report when Malta Drydocks employees overcome by their wegaght sought comfort by voluntarily re-decorating the Archbishops Curia right opposite the Police Headquarters. Only this time the police did not even bother to look on, but diligently stayed inside their depot.
But it was not for naught, the police eventually got to know what the MLP government expected of them, they bumped off and dumped one or two innocent individuals because someone did not happen to like their face and whenever Labour thugs attacked peaceful demonstrators, the police joined in the fun.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona, Astrid Vella, Times of Malta, and all of you switchers who actively worked to destroy Lawrence Gonzi and to put Joseph Muscat and his cronies into government, whether out of revenge or for personal gain, have a lot to answer for.
Naqbel miegħek mija fil-mija. Jgħidu li l-qasba ma ċċaqqċaqx għalxejn. U diġa bdiet iċċaqqaq. Alla ħares nerġgħu lura għal dak iz-zmien ta’ terrur għalkemm bil-mod il-mod ‘l hemm nidhru mixjin. Se jergġħu jġibu lil Malta għarkubbtejha. O ja switchers kemm għandkom għax twieġbu u tħabbtu fuq sidirkom… mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Can the editor of ‘The Times Of Malta’ tell his journalists that the past tense of ‘input’ is ‘input’, and not ‘inputted’?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140811/local/1400-cars-said-to-have-been-issued-vrt-certificates-by-vrt-station-without-actual-testing.531438
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inputted Actually its a valid term to use
Up to a short time ago I too thought that the past of “input” is “input” but a quick look in a recent version of the Concise Oxford Dictionary made me think otherwise :-)
The Times of Malta? Don’t expect inquisitive and accurate journalism where it matters.
So what we are being told is that the AFM, with their new uniforms and all, could not land a small chopper in this landing spot (link below shows helipad and cars parked nearby for size comparison) because a car was on the helipad….is that right?
What were they piloting, a ch-47 chinook?…or was the pilot a new recruit?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Malta/@35.8956166,14.4957524,43m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x130e45281d8647c5:0xf582d86136be4239
Probably it was just a “bozza tal-plastik.”
I still can’t understand why they shut down the Mater Dei helipad, just because there is a 5-storey “tower crane” more than 50 metres , probably more like 100 metres away.
I mean how do they land on oil rigs?
The AFM are busy polishing their boots for the greatest mission to date……Beach cleaning !
Can one also ask why the person was brought over to Malta by helicopter if the view was that he was not going to survive the trip in the first place?
I think the Ministry, through the Mater Dei CEO, is already trying to defend itself in advance of what is clearly a lawsuit in the making
Responsible are those who should have watched, checked and controled the mentioned helipad area, and those manging the system for such security controles, even of such controles and measures were nonexisting.
Too many contradictions.
We are all being fed the traditional dish “ross bil-labra” by the government.
I strongly suspect that the culprit might be, you know what I mean.
Taking so much time to identify the owner of the car can mean only one thing. That the owner is a bigwig of the Labour Party.
Doubt it. Times of Malta ace reporters and crack news photographers do not ordinarily drive by the St Luke’s Hospital helipad to and from their desk job.
I would put the blame on the helicopter pilot for turning back all the way to Gozo. He could easily have landed in Luqa airport and directed the ambulance there.
Due to a very complicated flight plan and the bureaucracy the pilot would have had to go through to obtain clearance for an alternate landing site, he preferred to turn around and go back where he came from.
Don’t blame him because others committed worse mistakes, but we will never know who and why.
He should have just landed on the car.
I agree entirely with you – all the heli pilot had to do was to contact the Luqa tower and explain the situation and not to go back to Gozo.
An other way is to contact the owner of the car through the police. That is how things are usually done when a car is wrongly parked
Or call for a tow-in car to remove it,
I bet that we will soon be reading in the Times that we must distinguish between the crime of a hit and run and a simple contravention. At this point in time, according to our logical calculations the crime left only scratches on the bodies of two cars whilst the contravention could have caused death on the body of a human being like us. Whence the gravity of the case?
A magisterial inquiry? The St Luke’s Hospital helipad has two separate exit/entry points. Both can double up as entry and exit points.
It is therefore accessible via the ring road at separate points. A single blocked entrance cannot render that helipad inaccessible and therefore unoperational.
Unless the car was literally parked on the helipad platform, access to the helipad couldn’t have been a problem.
We’re told that the incident happened on Saturday morning. The car was probably parked on Friday. Parking on Saturday is never a problem at St Luke’s. One wouldn’t need to park anywhere close to the helipad on a Saturday. Something is not quite right.
[Daphne – I thought it was parked ON the helipad?]
Remember when we were told that ‘is-second hand ahjar mill-gdid’? That memory popped up because, on reading this post, it seemed to me that someone must have the bright idea that a mostly empty space, the helipad, might be put to use as a parking space. What is most astonishing is that the fire, safety and security peple, who should be checking the helipad, as was done at Mater Dei, allowed this. Or have we now done away with safety procedures?
There are so many eyebrow raising and utterly objectionable things in the statements that one hardly knows where to begin. The really sad thing is that one after another we are seeing people’s integrity going down the drain. No future iced bun can ever make up for that. Dear smoke screen spinners, say hello to contempt.
Times of Malta, we look forward to your scoop when you ‘deer in the headlights’ this parking buff.
If no manhunt is carried out by the police, and nothing is done about that, then we will be really accepting all foolishness.
I work in an accident prone area in the Alps. Helicopters with paramedics land on patches of grass feet way from roads, lakes and cliffs to pick up injured cyclists, skiers and trekkers.
Of course Malta is full buildings and power-lines, but I am sure there are clear spaces where one could land a medium-sized helicopter. The airport runway, Ta’ Qali park and Marsa grounds are a better option than Gozo.
In this country we don’t have a plan B. We just repeat plan A over and over again.
Mater Dei also has a helipad
It cannot be used. There are tower cranes in the vicinity.
Seeing the way in which officials are playing down this incident I am not expecting any serious action against the culprit.
If the owner of the car who illegally parked his car at St Luke’s hospital helipad is known, can anyone from the Times of Malta door-steppers go and ask him why did he park his car there?
Can they tell us who this stupid and irresponsible person was?
If they pretend to be experienced investigative journalists, they should splash his details on their front page as they did with the old man in the hit and run accident.
After all, the old man’s report constituted just an accident whereas the owner of the illegally parked car in some way can be accused with the death of the Gozitan patient.
I posted this comment on Times of Malta’s comments board and it wasn’t uploaded.