New hospital takes shape
One hundred tradesmen – mechanical, electrical, hydraulics, sprinkler fitters, concreters and structural workers – are currently on site. By July another 70 will join them.
Next month the firewalls go in, followed by the steel structure between the floors of the multi-story building. By early May the roof will be on and by July she’ll be showing her colors. That’s when vivid shades of cladding will be erected.
At the moment the main foyer is taking shape. It doesn’t look much in photo 2 but pretty soon it’ll look like the artist’s sketch (photo 3). The rounded concrete slab is the level-one meeting room that will sit above the reception area. The long length of two-tone blue glass in the artist’s sketch is the Deakin Medical School’s 92 fixed-seat lecture theatre. Next door is a four-bed student teaching ward.
Directly above the atrium will be the new Critical Care Unit. The 10-bed facility (it’s currently six) will even have its first negative-pressure isolation room. In fact, the hospital will have three of them.
Back on the ground floor, there’s a coffee shop with a garden view, the hospital’s pharmacy department and a retail shop. The user-friendly, two-lane drop-off just outside will even be canopied.
All current signage is due to change, too. No longer will there be a mezzanine floor. It becomes Level 1.
The hospital is due to open in May next year. One of the biggest regional redevelopment projects to have ever been undertaken by a Victorian government, it’s set to deliver a world-class facility that provides patients with the most modern of accommodation and staff with the most modern of workplaces.