Last April 2022, the refurbishment works began on the 6th floor of the Women’s Hospital, one of the reference buildings within the hospital complex of the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital in Seville. In July of the same year, work began on the refurbishment of the 5th floor of the building.
After 5 months of work on each of the floors, the care service on both floors was reopened to patients and medical staff at the end of the year.
This building, constructed in the early 1970s, had serious problems with the air-conditioning system, which caused discomfort among patients and medical staff who carry out their daily healthcare activities in the consulting rooms and hospitalisation rooms of the building. The building’s original installation, consisting of inductors and primary air treatment units, had been operating inefficiently and ineffectively for years, causing noise and a lack of thermal comfort without being able to reach the minimum standards required by current regulations.
The scope of the HVAC system reform project includes the reform of all those areas of the building where the original air-conditioning system, consisting of inductors and external air supply units, still exists and is in operation. These spaces are: the hospitalisation floors from the 2nd to the 6th, the administration area on the ground floor and the consultation area on the semi-basement floor, i.e. approximately 40% of the total surface area of the building, which means a surface area of about 8,700 m2.
On all these floors, the existing HVAC system will be replaced by a new system consisting of fan coils in each of the air-conditioned spaces and zoned primary air AHUs in each of the wings of each floor.
The refurbishment work on the HVAC installation on each of the floors actually lasted about three months, but the Hospital management decided to take advantage of the closure of the floors to undertake additional improvement and modernisation work on the floors, which lasted a further two months. As a result, each of the floors has been closed to the public and care services for about five months. Each of the floors has a surface area of around 2,100 m2, 75% of which formed part of the scope of the refurbishment works, both for the HVAC system and the improvement of spaces.
Savener is also acting as Project Manager for this project and is collaborating, together with the technicians of the HUVR’s Engineering Sub-Directorate, in the coordination of the works with the heads of the Medical Service and the Nursing Service of the Women’s Hospital and the technicians of the HUVR’s Central Services.
This has been the most complex part of the whole process, as the execution of the work has meant the temporary closure of the floors and the relocation of consulting rooms, rooms and other hospital services, with the resulting disruption to patients and the healthcare service offered by the Women’s Hospital.
The reform work is currently continuing with the reform of the 4th floor and in the next few weeks will begin on the semi-basement and ground floors to finally finish with the work on the 3rd and 2nd floors, which is expected to be completed in the summer of 2023.
From Savener we can only be grateful for the great effort of all parties, especially patients and medical staff who are seeing their daily lives altered while the refurbishment works are being carried out. We are sure that the sacrifice will be worth it and they will all be able to enjoy the services offered by the building in conditions of adequate thermal, hygienic and acoustic comfort.
