Monash Health helipad hope for sick children Health Minister David Davis says the new ­centre will be a world-class facility. SICK Victorians have been promised a new helipad for Monash Health, despite the lifesaving facility being slashed from plans for a new Monash Children's Hospital. Other elements of the $250 million Children's Hospital, which the Sunday Herald Sun revealed had been cut from planning documents, could be reinstated if funding permits. The Health Minister, David Davis, said the new ­centre would be a world-class facility, and the Government was trying to get maximum value from the tender process. But Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews accused the State Government of doing the hospital "on the cheap" and said it had been "caught out" by cutback revelations. The Sunday Herald Sun ­revealed documents dated September 2013 showed the Government took a $16.4 million scalpel to the design of Victoria's second paediatric hospital, which would serve 27,000 sick children a year. Cuts included a children's sleep lab, the helipad, a children's mental health unit and a gait lab required to help ­disabled children walk. The Government yesterday said a helipad would be built, but would probably be ­outside the children's hospital project. It is understood it would service the adult wing of the existing hospital and the new children's hospital next door, with the existing emergency department taking patients destined for either facility. A senior paramedic familiar with the air ambulance system said a helipad must be connected to the hospital's emergency department to save lives. "Whenever we go to a non-helipad facility, it can add half an hour because we have to land and transfer critical ­patients to a road ambulance," the paramedic said. Mr Davis said some elements removed from planning documents "we would seek to add in" later in the contract process, and a helipad would be built elsewhere on the site. Monash Health chief executive Shelly Park said some other aspects of the existing hospital would be maintained.