Construction of centre of excellence in cancer care starts
Today, on 10 July, we entered into a design-build contract with the North Estonia Medical Centre for the establishment of the third development phase of the Mustamäe medical complex.
Over the next three years, the approximately 14,500 m2 Y-block of the Mustamäe hospital complex will be built, which will house a cancer care centre that offers modern and patient-friendly environment for top medical treatment.
The Y-block will have an outpatient chemotherapy department, inpatient chemotherapy and haematology departments. It will also house the Nephrology Centre’s haemodialysis department and the nephrology inpatient department. All of these units are subject to enhanced environmental technology requirements. The new complex will also be the new home of the Pathology Centre. The basement level of the building will have a modern magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) centre, which will give hospital patients much better access to top-flight diagnostics.
“Cancer care is one of the top priorities of the medical centre and it is very gratifying that in just a few years from now, our cancer patients will have an excellent medical environment and patient-friendly conditions in the new, high-tech Y-block,” said the chairman of the management board of the North Estonia Medical Centre, Agris Peedu.
Peedu said the building’s early planning phase for the Y-block involved an interdisciplinary team of doctors and engineers. Using building information modelling methodologies, the building designers and healthcare professionals took a virtual walk-through of most of the interior of the future Y-block so that suggestions for a more patient-centred treatment environment could be incorporated already in the planning phase.
AS Merko Ehitus Eesti’s management board chairman Jaan Mäe said cooperation with the medical centre had gone smoothly. “It’s a great honour for us to start building such an important and large-scale site for Estonian healthcare,” he commented. Mäe said it was a very demanding project for the contractor in terms of planning and execution to keep the construction work from disrupting provision of healthcare in the other units of the hospital complex. “We’ve worked with the Medical Centre before in the construction of their C-block, we know this customer’s high requirements and, as always, we are ready to make the effort,” said Mäe.
Besides the Y-block, the A and B-blocks’ basement, ground floor lobby and adjoining areas – about 5,800 m2 – will be renovated. The area where patients give blood samples for testing will be moved to a larger area in the immediate vicinity of the main entrance and the rehabilitative care centre’s treatment areas will be moved to one central area more easily accessible for patients.
As part of the scope of the contract, renovation will also take place in the existing inpatient wing – elevator shafts on all 13 floors will be renovated, new elevators will be installed and the departments’ areas where care is provided will be expanded.
The building engineering work ahead of the new construction and renovations in the third phase of the development of the complex was performed by Innopolis Insenerid OÜ. All of the major projects of the medical centre are designed using BIM methods and technologies.
