Blacktown Mt Druitt Hospital Project / Health Infrastruct
hospital staff and patients maximum access to the services they need . “ Because development was taking up a lot of the existing car parking on the campus , we actually had to arrange for offsite parking for staff that was in walking distance of the hospital for approximately 18 months – We had more than 200 staff parking offsite and walking in from satellite parking ,” Paris notes as an example . But through a combination of alternative routing and project planning , Health Infrastructure and contractors were able to reach a solution . “ The multideck car park was completed April of this year – we brought procurement of that forward so we could have that delivered early in the project , so now that provides efficient capacity on site for staff as well as patients and visitors to the hospital .”
This is closely linked to the biggest challenge overall : undertaking construction in a live environment , adhering to all infection control and patient safety requirements . “ All projects were completed in a ‘ live ’ hospital environment with multiple staged handovers to facilitate the User Group and Hospital Requirements ,” notes Dennis Macan , Project Manager at Kane Construction , noting that this live aspect presented the biggest challenge in terms of construction . When there are multiple contractors dovetailing their works together in this live environment , the need for precise coordination is critical .
“ At the Blacktown site , we ’ ve had up to 5 major contractors all working on a number of projects concurrently – so we ’ re balancing all those different work sites and how they all interface ,” says Paris . Like the issue of the car park , this is addressed by ensuring that contractors work closely with the hospital and with each other to ensure that all are on the same page .
Building Piece by Piece A large undertaking like the MDH Project requires that designers and builders bring some innovative thinking to the table , and one of the more progressive techniques being delivered on this project is offsite fabrication . “ We ’ re just entering into that phase at the moment on the Clinical Services Building , where
170 August 2014