The Westpac Rescue Helicopter's new home at Belmont was officially opened this morning by NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan.
The base is worth $5.5 million and enables the NSW Ambulance and Hunter New England Health medical team to deliver faster and go further across regional, rural and remote NSW communities.
The opening of the Belmont base is part of the $151.2 million state-wide Helicopter Retrieval Network which is the single biggest NSW Government investment in aeromedical services in the state's history.
"This is a $5.5 million base and that's not even counting the aircraft which is here to support it so when you look at it $2.2 million was directly out of Restart Hunter and it was a great leg up to the partnership and it's allowed us to deliver a great base to the community," said Commissioner Dominic Morgan.It's one of the first new NSW Ambulance & Westpac Rescue Helicopters in the state funded in part by the NSW Government.
Helicopter Paramedic Adam Butt couldn't more happy to work at what is a world class base.
"The last base that we worked at Broadmeadow, it started off as a very small base and it grew and we just kind of tacked on little bits as we got more funding and this base is purposefully designed for our workflow from us getting the job, getting into the operations plan, getting into the aircraft, starting the aircraft and getting underway," he said.
It's been in the making for many years, and is sure to be in service for many to come.
"If you're a doctor or a nurse or a pilot or a crewman and you got to work from this base, you were thinking you were working in the best possible place in your career so many of the staff that have joined with us now as part of the partnership have come from other organisations and couldn't be happier with the aircraft they get to fly on," said Commissioner Dominic Morgan.
