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Vendée’s hospital will be bigger and better |
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Wednesday, 14 March 2007 |
The Vendée’s main hospital,
the Centre Hospitalier in
La Roche-sur-Yon is to be
extended and refurbished.
Work will begin in
November this year and will
take until 2014 to complete, at
a cost of €150 million.
Built in 1977, there has
been no major extension or
modernisation since then. Now
it is time for major
improvements to meet the
needs of the ever-increasing
population and to cater for
advances in medical and
surgical techniques.
The first phase, which will
take three years to complete,
will be the construction of new
blocks mainly at the back of
the existing building.
A large building shaped
like a banana will house
paediatrics, obstetrics and
gynaecology. There will also
be a new wing adjoining the
current main building with a
helipad on top of it. The
Intensive Care Unit will be
doubled in size and the Day
Surgery Unit will be
refurbished.
Once this phase is
complete, patients will be
moved into the new parts from
the main hospital building to
allow refurbishment to begin
there, one half at a time.
Priority will be given in
the second phase to the
extension of accident and
emergency services which are
currently stretched. The
number of patients’ rooms will
be increased from 395 to 584,
many of which will be single
rooms.
Parking remains a
problem. The current 1,200
places are already saturated as
many visitors are aware.
Another car park is to be
made, but will only take an
extra 278 cars.
“We are concerned that
the work is going to take so
long, but we hope the patients
will be understanding,” said
Dr Michel Wiesel, president of
the hospital’s medical
commission.
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