SEATTLE — Jade Villano became intimately familiar with Seattle Children’s.
For 89 days, her youngest daughter, Dolly, was kept in the NICU with a hole in her heart. She would stay during the week, often sleeping on couches, returning to her home with her husband and the other four kids on weekends.
“You never think it’s going to be you, and then, how do you think about the situation?” Villano said, “It stops you in your tracks because you see stories all the time. But, until you love it and you meet the families, then you know.”
Villano would leave at 4 a.m. from their University Place home to try and beat traffic, but it was always there, especially past the University of Washington athletic fields, past the University District.
It’s one of several reasons she was shocked to learn about a policy that non-critical patients transported via helicopter to Seattle Children’s have to stop a mile down the road at a helipad behind the driving range on the UW campus, and be taken the rest of the way, about a mile drive, to Seattle Children’s.
“If a child is being put on a helicopter to go to Seattle Children’s? Why are we turning them away? Ever? You live next to a hospital. I mean, you’re the one who bought the house next to the hospital.”
The policy was borne out of a 1992 agreement between the hospital, the City of Seattle, and the Laurelhurst neighborhood bordering the hospital.
— Seattle Children’s spokesperson
The issue has been reinvigorated by a since-deleted X post from a person claiming to be a life flight pilot, detailing that Sunday morning was the second time out of at least fifty air transports that they had been allowed to land at Seattle Children’s.
It sparked hundreds of comments on social media, namely, Reddit. Life Flight confirmed the transport did happen in a statement to KIRO 7.
Every second matters in air medical transport. Direct and rapid access to care is what gives critically ill patients the best chance at a positive outcome. We appreciate and support Seattle Children’s and continue to advocate for operational standards that reflect the urgency of our most vulnerable patients.
— Life Flight spokesperson Natalie Hannah
KIRO 7 spoke to Laurelhurst Community Council President Colleen McAleer over the phone. McAleer did not agree to give any on the record on the record comments, only to say the group is open to meeting. The neighborhood, the city, and the hospital meet several times a year.
In 2020, McAleer told the advisory committee, “there has been fewer landings in the athletic field; almost all the landings are on top of the building. It seems some of the helicopter pilots are not trained on how air-lift drops are to go,” according to the meeting’s minutes.
The next advisory committee meeting has yet to be scheduled.
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