KEEPING NOISE AT BAY - THE CHALLENGE OF PLANNING A HELIPAD AT AN URBAN HOSPITAL

摘要

Provision of a helipad at an existing regional acute hospital, Queen Mary Hospital (QMH), in urban area of Hong Kong, was proposed in its redevelopment project to further enhance its emergency medical services. QMH provides 24-hour Accident and Emergency services and serves as a territory-wide tertiary and quaternary referral centre for many advanced and complex services. The proposed helipad enables point-to-point transfer of patients to the hospital and thus the chance of delay due to traffic congestion during emergency transfer can be greatly reduced. However, as QMH is in close proximity to high-rise residential developments and there are many existing site constraints, it is a great challenge to plan the helipad to ensure compliance with the relevant daytime noise planning standard under the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance. The potential noise impact of helicopters in evening and night periods for meeting the 24-hour operation need of emergency medical services is also a big concern. Therefore, the avoidance-minimization-mitigation principle in a comprehensive manner is applied in the proactive planning process. After careful considerations of site constraints and various alternatives, the helipad is planned at the rooftop of a high-rise hospital building to achieve larger separation distance and provide more noise screening to the residential developments nearby. An array of practicable noise mitigation measures, such as quieter helicopters, flight sector design and noise barriers, has been developed to minimize the helicopter noise impact in early planning stage. This paper discusses the noise planning approaches and various measures adopted, which can be considered for planning other new helipads in Hong Kong.