This summer in Kyiv, the opening of a unique multifunctional medical facility — the Innovative Center for Heart and Vascular Surgery of Dobrobut Medical Network — took place. For the Ventilation Systems this project is significant because ventilation of all rooms of the center if provided with the Vents equipment. We asked Yulia Dvorakovskaia, the head of the CBM FORUM engineering company, to tell us about the peculiarities of construction of a new clinic and the choice of ventilation equipment supplier for the project.

– Yulia, your company carried out the engineering of the whole project. However, many of our readers may not fully understand what an engineering company is and what it does. Can you clarify this question briefly?

– An engineering activity is a complex engineering and technical management of project construction, which covers all the phases of investment and construction projects, namely design, construction and registration of permits. The list of works performed by an engineering company includes pre-feasibility reports and studies, project appraisal, development of a management budget and construction schedule, tendering for the necessary equipment, contracting, and coordination of all construction participants.

– How demanding are healthcare construction projects for your company?

– Constructing or renovating buildings for healthcare facilities has never been easy to accomplish. And multifunctional medical centers are already in the big leagues of engineering with the highest level of complexity. The specifics and peculiarities of building mixed-use medical centers are not taught elsewhere. Such knowledge is acquired only by experience, by dealing with complexity, finding solutions, making corrections, continual improvement, optimization, etc. It’s invaluable experience in the real world, where responsibility is at its highest, and where speed and quality are equally important.

I’ll give you a simple example. Residential and office buildings usually have the same layout on all floors and the same purpose, which simplifies the utility requirements for each room on each floor. This is not the case with multi-functional medical centers. Here, different departments can be located under one roof: admission, therapy, physiotherapy, treatment and diagnostics, radiology, day care, intensive care units, intensive care, operating rooms, and so on. I am not even talking about infectious disease clinics and departments, which are the busiest today. Each of these units can have its own unique layout and its own specific requirements for energy supply, lighting, ventilation, air conditioning and so on. This means that the ventilation for buildings, departments and individual rooms can be quite complex. In this case, the layout of the air supply and air flow in all areas and the positioning of the necessary ventilation equipment and air ducts must be thought through.

– Dobrobut center was not your first medical construction project. Tell us about your experience in such projects.

– Our company is not new to the market, we have 6 years’ experience in construction engineering and an impressive list of completed projects, including medical facilities. Moreover, the construction of such facilities is one of our core competences. CBM FORUM’s clients include leading private and public clinics and medical networks. Our implemented projects include such well-known clinics as Dobrobut, Oxford Medical, Medicell, Oncomed, Verde, Varta and a number of others.

I believe the future belongs to such medical facilities. Ukraine’s medical infrastructure needs to be completely renovated. Around 80% of all medical buildings are over 50 years old. And it’s not just about the quality of buildings and engineering, but also the fact that old medical facilities are not up to modern standards: from logistics and accessibility to the quality of services and the equipment used. The good news is that private medicine has already reached a level where it is ready to create modern, innovative clinics as required by the market.

– Were there any difficulties in designing the ventilation system in Dobrobut clinic?

– Having information about the area and height of all rooms in the building, their purpose and requirements for them according to regulations, it is not very difficult to calculate the necessary air exchange and choose the configuration of the ventilation system and the appropriate ventilation equipment. Of course, it would be much easier to design a hotel or an office building where the general ventilation scheme is simple enough. In this case, you calculate the necessary volume of supply air on the basis of the number of internal rooms, their total area and height, choose the supply and exhaust units with the appropriate capacity and the problem is solved.

In the case of Dobrobut clinic, the problem was complicated by the fact that it is a high-rise medical center with different functional areas. There is an emergency room, a polyclinic, a diagnostics room, a laboratory, an emergency room, a multi-purpose bed department, a chemotherapy department, and seven operating rooms, including two radiology ones. And all of this takes up an area of more than 10,000 square meters. The requirements for air exchange and ventilation design may differ in different areas. For example, in operating and radiology rooms the air must always be sterile. Therefore, it is not allowed to let air to flow into these rooms from others in the building or directly from the street through windows and window openings. In these cases, an individual mechanical ventilation system with antibacterial filtration, heating, cooling and air quality control is designed. All of this requires a preliminary calculation and the appropriate ventilation equipment.

– Many public buildings and facilities also include indoor parking ventilation and a smoke ventilation system…

– In our case, we are not dealing with a business center, so there is no car park in the clinic, but a smoke ventilation system is provided and implemented. And it is fully implemented using Vents equipment. There are roof fans for smoke removal, axial fans for air support, fire dampers and so on. I think any modern hospital should have such a system, because these are socially important objects, which always have a large number of staff and patients, mainly elderly people. Therefore, it is critical for such institutions to ensure smoke extraction in case of fire, to buy time and ensure safe evacuation of people. Of course, I wish that such emergencies had never happened.

– What other Vents products, apart from the smoke ventilation equipment, are used in the facility and why did you choose this particular producer?

– Virtually all of the air exchange in the clinic is provided by Vents equipment. There are about two dozen air-handling units of different capacities that supply the fresh air needs of the whole building. We planned it that way from the beginning, so that, if possible, we would not work with different product suppliers, but with a single one. This approach simplifies the project realization, reduces communication and guarantees the compatibility of all equipment and accessories.

I can’t say that the choice of equipment was quick and easy. At one time, we issued a tender for ventilation products for the site. In response, we received numerous offers from producers and suppliers, including Ventilation Systems company. Having considered all the offers and weighed all the pros and cons, we opted for Vents products. As I said before, Vents produces a very wide range of products and made a complete offer, including everything you need. The company is quite well-known, has been operating for a long time, and exports a lot. Moreover, we already had experience of working together with Vents, and it is positive. Another important detail: the company’s products include modifications for use in medical institutions.

– So, this was not the first project for your company using Vents ventilation equipment?

– Not the first, and I don’t think it will be the last. In any case, all of our previous projects have been successful, and I see an excellent prospect for further development of our cooperation.