By Sgt. Jacob A. McDonald
50th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait -- The construction of a 25-bed hospital at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, drew the attention of the new chief of the Army Corps of Engineers during his visit June 27.
The new facility, will replace the existing fleet hospital currently housed in a temporary structure.
"The reason we are building the new hospital is our existing hospital is a fleet hospital," said Navy Lt. Joe Kascak, health facility planning, project officer. "It is a temporary structure and it has been here well past its expected life cycle. And, our population size here warrants a military facility to support the (service members) here in Kuwait."
While the new hospital is categorized as a 25-bed facility, it has a capacity to treat more than 40 patients in emergency situations.
"This hospital has 21 medical surgical beds and four ICU (intensive care unit) beds," Kascak said. "It has two full operating rooms. It has one endoscopy procedure room that can also be used as a third operating room. It also has an 11-bed ER (emergency room)."
"We can expand up to and beyond 44 beds in a crisis or emergency, provided the staffing is available to take care of that many casualties," Kascak continued.
In addition to having more beds available for patients, the new 3,200 square meter facility will have more overall space to treat patients.
"Its functionality is the same (as the existing facility). The space will be larger, because we used our space planning criteria. That allowed us to build our exam rooms, our operating rooms and things of that nature to specific sizes. We will have more space to take care of the patients."
Other features of the new facility include X-ray, CT Scan, a capacity for up to 72 hours of emergency power and modern systems to keep the air in the facility clean.
"We plan on having X-ray and CT Scan capabilities to perform operations and diagnoses," Kascak said. "We have a laboratory to check for diseases and such, and of course we have a pharmacy and an internal medicine clinic.
"The cleanliness will be a lot better," Kascak said. "We will be able to keep the sand out. We will have breezeways and modern HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning). We also have the vestibules that will help with temperature control. With the building's systems, the air conditioning units and things of that nature, our maintenance load, will go way down. That will free us up to help do more patient care activities rather than worrying about keeping our building or our tents operable.
"What I am really happy with, is they are building more towards our (standards)," Kascak continued. "That includes building systems like our air conditioning, our temperature controls and our emergency power. We have 15 hours current emergency power; we are going to jump up to 72 hours without refueling our generators. That is a big plus. If something goes down and they can't get fuel in for a few days we will still be able to deliver (full) health care for 72 hours."
Maj. Timothy Vail, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, construction agent in charge of the project, said the new fixed facility will have fewer complications due to weather and the harsh conditions here and will be more energy efficient.
"It needed to match the construction on Arifjan and it needed to be a quick build," Vail said.
The location on Arifjan was picked carefully. It had to meet specific guidelines before construction could begin. In order to meet the building requirements, the new facility will be connected to the existing troop medical clinic and dental clinic.
"We decided to connect it to the TMC and the dental clinic to make one large medical complex," Vail said.
Construction of the new facility began in mid June and is scheduled to be completed by mid December. It is scheduled to open Dec. 30.
"They are working under a tight time line for completion," Vail said. "Construction began June 18 and they have 180 days to complete it. They have come up with a well-synchronized joint occupancy plan where the hospital will begin moving in while some of the construction is still going on in order to open and begin treating patients on time."
During his visit here Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, chief of engineers and commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was impressed with the teamwork shown between the Army, Navy and civilian construction company and other contractors in order to get the hospital completed on time.
"This is a priority for us," Van Antwerp said. "There is a tremendous amount of effort here. This is challenging for the contractors. It is great to see the partnering when personnel are changing out every six months. It is the combination of things, that is going to make this a success."
| Date Taken: |
07.16.2007 |
| Date Posted: |
07.16.2007 13:26 |
| Story ID: |
11301 |
| Location: |
CAMP ARIFJAN, KW |
| Web Views: |
453 |
| Downloads: |
204 |
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