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There is currently no shortage of Bay Area Hospital Helipads as shown by the map below:
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Hospital Name
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Hospital Name
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1
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Doctor’s Medical Center
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9
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Seton Medical Center (Unused)
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2
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John Muir Medical Center
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10
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Regional Medical Center
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3
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Oakland Children’s Hospital
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11
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Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
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4
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Eden Medical Center
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12
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Mercy San Juan Hospital
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5
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Valley Care Medical Center
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13
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Sutter General Hospital
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6
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Washington Hospital
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14
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UC Davis Medical Center (Under construction)
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7
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Stanford University Hospital
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15
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Santa Rosa Memorial
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8
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Mills Peninsula Medical Center
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16
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Queen of the Valley Hospital
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People injured in any of the Bay Area's recreational areas or on highways, are never more than a few minutes away from a hospital with a helipad. Adding another helipad at SF General would not save more lives, because the trauma scene patients that could be flown to SF General are now flown to these other Bay Area hospitals with helipads.
INJURIES within San Francisco would NOT be rescued by helicopter, SF patients will continue to be brought to SFGH by ambulances. Ground ambulances have an average response time of 8 minutes.
What about the patients flown OUT of SF General to Oakland Children's Hospital?
Helicopters would not be housed at SF General's helipad, so they would need to be summoned from the Concord heliport. They would arrive at SFGH approximately 20-28 minutes later (5-10 minutes to assemble the crew, warm-up engines and take off, 15-18 minutes air travel time, depending on wind conditions) Once at SFGH, the loading process and liftoff takes another 5-8 minutes, finally, the flight time to Oakland Children's Hospital is approximately 10 minutes. Total time elapsed: 35-46 minutes, twice as long as ground ambulance transfer requires.
It's NOT about saving lives, it's about transferring insured patients to SFGH. Follow the money......... Costs.
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