ORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER eee 56 pages Office, Editorial 985-2131 Display Advertising 980-0511 Summer swimwear Carol Crenna: 14 Prime Classifieds 986-6222 of life: 21 Distribution 986-1337 NEWS phato Cindy Goodman HELEN, 24, and husband Rob Cornborough, 25, pose with their family of identical twins, including the latest additions of Dayna (6 Ibs. 4 oz.) and Justine (6 ibs. 2 0z.). The girls were born on July 7 at Lions Gate Hospital and are younger siblings to active 2 1/2 year-olds, Tyler and Todd. Back- to-back identical twins occur after 65,C00 twin births, said Helen's mother, Joan Stringer. Stringer noted that the family now needs a station wagon. Prov. air ambulance service needs landing facilities, say health and business officials said the air ambulance service LIONS GATE Hospital (LGH) should be given immediate funding to build a helipad now that the provincial gov- ernment has created a dedicated air ambulance service, several health and business people said this week. ~The B.C health ministry recent- ly signed a contract with Van- couver Island Helicopters that will add a dedicated air ambulance service to the existing operations of the B.C Ambulance Service. The service will establish air ambulance stations in Vancouver, Victoria and Prince Rupert. By Surj Rattan News Reporter But West Vancouver businessman Steve Mutlins, presi- dent of AStar Business Techno-. logy Inc., which has designed and built helipads around the world, hospital Mainland such as won't work without helipads at Lower health-care facilities LGH. Helicopters transporting — crit- ically il patients to LGH used to land at Grand Boulevard Park be- tween JSth and 13th Streets. They now land near BC Rail train tracks located next to Vancouver Wharves Lid. on the North Van- couver waterfront. “What's the use of having helicopters if you don’t have any place for them to land? Someone has to point out to the local polit- ical people that we're way behind the rest of the world in having helipads at our hospitals,’’ said Mullins. “Hundreds of lives a year could be saved by bringing trauma pa- tients directly to the rooftops of hospitals.”’ LGH president Bob Smith said it would cost about $500,000 to build a helipad at the North Van- couver hospital. He added that a helipad has been on LGH’s wish list for sev- eral years and that it is a high priority item associated with the hospital's multi-million-dollar expansion plan. But Smith said no money has been made available as yet for the helipad’s construction. ‘af the government would just dust off the trauma report that was released two years ago, that would provide the impetus for building a helipad. “One of the advantages of building a helipad at this hospital is that it would be used for medi- cal evacuations, because it would be on top of our house. “We're kind of in a halding pattern with it right now. The hospital board and the medical staff here are still quite committed to getting a helipad. | would like to have one,” said Smith. Tim Jones, North Vancouver unit chief of the B.C. Ambulance Service, said a helipad at LGH would make things much easier for local emergency crews.