Work under way to extend the Hospital del Mar
The demolition stage for the five century-old buildings at the Hospital del Mar is now under way, paving the way for the extension to the hospital. The two-month demolition stage will clear an area of 5,500 square metres. The hospital will continue to operate during this process, having created a contingency plan and checks and measures to guarantee its activity continues.
A mist cannon has been installed to supress dust during the work, along with other safety measures such as netting to stop the spread of dust, specific circuits for operators and microbiological material and monitoring for the most vulnerable healthcare areas. Wards in the parts of the building to be demolished have been relocated, with other parts of the hospital reorganised and strengthened for patients to be transferred to them.
The enlargement project is expected to take 24 months and will see the Hospital del Mar gain 22,500 square metres in built surface space, also unifying the current accident and emergency units and other services and raising the number of beds by 75 across the six new in-patient units. There will also be four new operating theatres, a new intensive care unit, an ophthalmology space of 1,000 square metres, a new pharmacy, a new mother and children’s area, a baby unit and a helipad, all designed to adapt to the needs resulting from a pandemic such as the current one and to reduce the building’s environmental impact.
The construction also takes into account sustainability and is designed to reduce the waste generated and save on energy consumption. For instance, 1,600 square metres of solar panelling will be installed on the rooftop to generate electricity to cover the building’s own needs, while roof terraces will get vegetation to help reduce building’s carbon footprint by 2,169 tonnes of CO2 a year.
The work has a budget of nearly 73 million euros. Part of this will be funded by the REACT-UE programme for FEDER funds, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, while the City Council approved a budgetary item of 7.7 million euros to jointly fund the work. This figure rises to 13 million if adding the investment made for the work project and preliminary work.
When construction work on the second building finishes, a final work stage will remain to complete the enlargement project in its entirety, allowing the Hospital del Mar to reach 103,500 square metres of floor space and 544 conventional beds (150 more than at present. The facility will also have 14 neonatal in-patient points and 54 beds for critical and semi-critical patients, plus 24 operating theatres in all.
