Hames Sharley instilled a better patient experience when redesigning the Peel Health Campus located in Mandurah, Australia.

With healthcare becoming even more crucial in this challenging and rapidly evolving era, Peel Health Campus commissioned Hames Sharley as the architect for a major refurbishment at the Mandurah campus – resulting in an overall better patient experience.

The work was carried out by Devlyn Construction, industry leaders in commercial development projects. Their extensive experience in medical construction, and reputation for delivering a high level of quality and meticulous attention to detail, was especially important in the Peel Health Campus upgrade.

The project involved staged redevelopment works to the emergency department and short-stay admission ward, as well as the server room. These works were carried out while both areas were kept operational. As access was limited, a scaffold was set up over the top of the building, with a hoist for material to minimise disruption to the hospital’s operations.

Each area was hoarded off to create a construction zone, and the relevant areas were fully demolished internally and rebuilt to current healthcare design standards. Specifically, the work comprised a full upgrade of the machinal, electrical, comms and nurse call, and a new consultation room, waiting room and reception area.

The emergency department was altered and extended to increase the size of the ambulance patient waiting, triage and fast track treatment areas. Alterations were also made to the Rivers Suite to increase the number of short-stay beds.

In addition to erecting a hoist and scaffold to gain access over the top of the building, another main challenge faced by the Devlyn team was, understandably, the impact of COVID-19 – not only on the site but also transporting and moving material. Then there were those customary challenges of working in a ‘live’ hospital: keeping noise to a minimum and incorporating effective dust control measures.

Devlyn’s main site compound and materials lay-down area were at the rear of the campus, 80 metres from the actual work zone, which meant that even the most mundane task involved careful planning to ensure the campus suffered no delays or negative impact.

Bearing in mind the limited access to building areas, all materials including cumbersome items such as concrete and bricks had to be delivered in small quantities and moved throughout the facility by hand – with no mess or impact to staff or patient movements.

This was achieved by Devlyn engaging higher than usual numbers of labourers to guarantee that materials were delivered without delay and areas were cleaned regularly.

In the end, even though all the work was subject to a tight schedule, each separable portion was handed over on time, with a satisfactory result for all those involved and no major accidents or incidents.

Devlyn worked closely with Ramsay Health staff to ensure the impact of construction work on a day to day basis was kept to an absolute minimum, with all access and egress areas maintained clean at all times, construction noise carefully monitored and kept to a minimum, and stakeholders fully informed of progress and works to avoid any unforeseen impact.

Design: Hames Sharley
Contractor: Devlyn Construction
Photography: courtesy of Devlyn Construction and Johnathan Trusk