St Stephen’s Hospital Redevelopment

Disciplines
Electrical, Mechanical, Vertical Transportation

Markets
Health & Aged Care

Offices
Brisbane

Key People

Ashley Holm

Electrical Section Manager, Principal

Terence Ong

Electrical Senior Project Engineer, Principal

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The St Stephen’s Hospital redevelopment is located in Hervey Bay and is part of the Uniting Care Health Group. The Australian Federal Government has contributed funds as part of this project to enable it to be developed as the first digital hospital in Australia, operating as a paperless hospital.

WGE were the electrical, mechanical and vertical transportation consultants for this project. Being a digital hospital, the engineering systems such as power supplies and air conditioning were critical elements of the design. The hub of the digital hospital is located within a data centre on site which required redundant air conditioning systems and power supplies to be able to provide full functionality to the site even during power outages from the power authority. This was achieved via the provision of two standby diesel generators and two UPS units with n + n redundancy. Other system resilience measures include the reticulation of duplicated fibre optic cabling between communications racks via redundant paths throughout the facility and provisions for future stages to minimise disruptions to the facility during future construction.

This project was fully documented in REVIT, allowing for clash detection and coordination between services, hydraulics and structure, which was particularly useful in coordinating the in ground services trench running the full length of the site from the central energy plant.

Mechanical and electrical sustainability initiatives incorporated into this project included:

• Solar power generation that provides sufficient power to cover the energy used by general lighting in the theatres and Central Sterile Supply Department (CSSD) areas.
• A heat reclaim system to capture the waste heat from the sterilisers, for use in providing re-heat for dehumidification control in the operating theatre air conditioning systems.
• A “dashboard” type display which highlights the energy and water savings provided by the sustainability initiatives incorporated in this hospital.
• A fully networked energy metering system providing inputs for the “dashboard display”.

Stage 1 of the redevelopment includes the expansion of the existing surgical theatres to a total of 5 theatres, a three level inpatient unit consisting of 96 beds, admissions and administration offices, outpatient medical suites, CSSD and back of house facilities, and the central energy facility. Future stages include expansion of the inpatient unit to a total of 180 beds and a further three surgical theatres.