Fears lives will be lost with Kāpiti Airport closure

Sunday, 30 August 2020

Kāpiti Coast Mayor K Gurunathan is backing a small group of whānau from Ngāti Puketapu hapū asking the Crown to return their ancestral land which has been developed into the Kāpiti Airport.

Fears of lost lives or urgent patients having to be driven over the Remutaka Hill are being raised in an effort to keep Kāpiti Coast Airport open.

The airport is facing closure, but a letter from Wellington intensive care doctor Alex Psirides and associate charge nurse manager Karyn Hathaway points to eight separate times in the past few months when medical flights, including some carrying critically-ill children, could not land in Wellington, and Kāpiti was used as a backup.

“When Wellington Airport is closed for adverse weather conditions, or for maintenance work, Kāpiti Airport becomes an essential lifeline to allow us to retrieve critically-ill patients,” the letter to Kāpiti Mayor K Gurunathan said.

“We are aware that the viability of airport services may only be considered based on commercial factors.

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“We would request that aeromedical services that reduce inequality of access to healthcare should also be included in any viability assessment.

“If Kāpiti Coast Airport were to close, this would impact upon aeromedical retrieval, with potential adverse consequences for patients.”

Kāpiti Health Advisory Group chair Dame Karen Poutasi – the former director-general of health – has supported calls for the airport to stay open.

Gurunathan, who has been fighting for the airport to be retained, said lives would be lost if the airport closed.

He would be writing to Health Minister Chris Hipkins, Civil Defence Minister Peeni Henare, and Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minster Andrew Little to oppose the closure.

He would make the case to Hipkins that the airport was crucial, especially when Wellington Airport was closed, for life-saving medical flights, including organ transplants and patient transfers.

Gurunathan would tell Henare the airport would be a lifeline to the capital in the event of a natural disaster.

And he would tell Little of the call from original Māori owners of the airport for the Crown to take appropriate steps to return the land, which was taken under the Public Works Act in 1939.

“If the new airport owners, NZPropCo, were not fully aware of the critical services the airport supports when they included the potential closure of the airport as an option, I now put them on notice with the advice that community opposition is increasing,” Gurunathan said.

Life Flight chief executive Mark Johnston said the Kāpiti closure would mean Wellington's backup runways would be in Masterton or Palmerston North. Using the Masterton airport would, at times, require driving patients over the Remutaka Hill.

The Life Flight helicopter could land while the Wellington runway was closed – which it would be for many nights while repairs were done in late 2020 – but low cloud could prevent this.

A closure of the Kāpiti Coast Airport would mean some patients would be unable to come to Wellington, often leading to longer flight times in critical moments to other centres.

Kāpiti Health Advisory Group chair Dame Karen Poutasi also wrote to the mayor, endorsing the words of the Wellington medics.

“I endorse their view that Kāpiti Coast Airport becomes an essential lifeline in such situations and note that closure could have potential adverse consequences for patients.”

Stuff in August revealed the airport faced closure, possibly within weeks.

NZPropCo said no decision had been made to close the airport but it was “reviewing all options” in the face of economic and safety concerns.