Turnkey construction company, MTX Contracts, has recently completed a suite of five ‘modern and future-proofed’ operating theatres at the Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, in the first phase of a 90-phase, £89.9 million redevelopment of facilities at the North Wales hospital being undertaken by Laing O’Rourke for the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
According to Dr Eileen Williams, a consultant anaesthetist at the hospital, and the clinical lead on the hospital redevelopment project, the new theatre facilities will enable surgeons to undertake a wide range of surgical procedures, equipped with the most modern technology, in an environment that is not only lighter, brighter, and better laid out than the six previous theatres, but will also improve patient flow, aid infection control, and greatly enhance overall working efficiencies. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.
The five new operating theatres, three equipped for general surgery, and the other two for operations including orthopaedic procedures (thanks to the incorporation of MAT laminar flow canopies), are located on the first floor of the sizeable 1970s-built district general hospital, alongside a new eight-bed recovery bay, patient waiting area, staff changing facilities, and expanded clinical storage facilities. As part of a turnkey project – which also saw the company take on the scheme’s design for Laing O’Rourke, working from Stage E onwards to plans developed by architects, The Design Buro – MTX also stripped out, expanded, and fitted out with new HVAC equipment, an existing third floor plant room, one storey above the new theatres. This serves both the new first floor operating suite, and two existing theatres on the ground floor below it. The plant room re-fit entailed not only structural alterations to the existing plant space, but also raising the existing structure and roof by 1,500 mm to accommodate new equipment including new Barkell air-handling units. One of the biggest challenges MTX and Laing O’Rourke faced on the project was creating the five new theatres and new plant room while two theatres on the first floor, and the two on the ground floor, remained fully operational. The Health Board did, however, supplement its surgical capacity during the construction work with two temporary Vanguard mobile operating theatres, located in the hospital car park near the cardiac catheterisation laboratory, and an additional refurbished ‘secondhand’ modular theatre, which MTX had stripped out and re-equipped off site, before installing it adjacent to the Vanguard theatres.
Part of a 90-phase project
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