Copter service bond sought LifeFlight backs $6 million plan

Critically ill or injured people in Maine’s rural areas will have faster access to medical treatment if privately owned LifeFlight of Maine is successful in its bid for $6 million in public funding.

Senate President Beverly C. Daggett, D-Augusta, has submitted legislation to issue state bonds to increase the number of LifeFlight’s helipads, improve its navigational systems and make other changes. The bill has bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

If LD 667 gets the two-thirds approval it needs to pass, voters will have the final say in a November referendum vote.

The statewide critical care helicopter service, co-parented by Eastern Maine Healthcare in Bangor and Central Maine Health Care in Lewiston, has been transporting patients for more than four years, and Executive Director Tom Judge says the program has proved its worth.

“It works great and we’ve grown a lot,” Judge said. Since 1998, LifeFlight crews have transported more than 4,000 patients. Most suffered from severe injuries from accidents.

The majority of transfers are made from one hospital to another better equipped to deal with the medical problem.

LifeFlight helicopters occasionally will land at the scene of an accident, but it’s rare, Judge said. Victims most often are stabilized at the nearest hospital, where the decision is made to fly them to a larger facility.

Judge said the program is hindered by the lack of safe landing areas and other infrastructure supports. He said it can take longer to get a patient from a small rural hospital to the nearest airstrip or other landing site by road than to fly to the receiving hospital – usually in Bangor, Lewiston or Portland.

Just 10 of Maine’s hospitals have landing pads. Judge said 21 facilities are asking for help in building them, and several rural communities without hospitals want to establish landing sites.

The growing demand for access to LifeFlight’s services, – taken together with scarce fueling services and sketchy weather information in the farther-flung corners of the state – means it’s time to beef up the system, he said.

Although the separate, privately funded LifeFlight Foundation has provided support and training to communities and their hospitals, Judge said there’s growing pressure for the state to share the funding of this essential service.

“Some of our corporate donors have been asking, ‘Where’s the public investment?'” he said. “If every person in the state is going to get the benefit of this program, we need to build an infrastructure that supports it.”

Judge approached the Legislature several months ago seeking the $6 million bond. The money would be used to leverage matching donations through the foundation for infrastructure improvements, training and new equipment and to upgrade LifeFlight’s two leased helicopters.

Judge emphasized that EMH and CMHC will continue to fund the operating costs of the program.

The LifeFlight program originally was met with skepticism by rural hospitals that feared losing patients to larger institutions. Because transfer requests are generated by the sending hospital and are carefully triaged before being accepted, Judge said, small hospitals have come to appreciate the service.

Brian Mahany, special assistant to Daggett, said that while issuing state bonds to a private nonprofit organization is unusual, the Senate leader feels it’s important to take the lead in ensuring LifeFlight’s expansion in Maine’s health care delivery system. “LifeFlight is providing a valuable service that in many other states is provided by public agencies,” Mahany said.

Daggett has been in close communication with Gov. John Baldacci’s office, Mahany said, to be sure the LifeFlight expansion will mesh with his health care reform efforts.

Bill co-sponsor Sen. Mary Cathcart, D-Orono, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, said she appreciates LifeFlight’s contributions, but predicts the bond issue may be a tough sell in difficult financial times.

“It’s going to be up against a lot of other worthwhile things,” she said. “Everybody’s trying to bond everything because there’s no money in the budget.”

Cathcart said there is already more than $250 million in bond requests filed with the treasurer’s office; last year, Maine issued about $135 million in bonds.