Aspen Medical built the award-winning 51-bed COVID-19 Surge Centre in Canberra in just 36 days Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Aspen Medical’s work to create Canberra’s temporary field hospital was recently awarded a silver medal at the 2020 International Project Management Association (IPMA) Awards. The COVID-19 Surge Centre, located beside Canberra Hospital on Garran Oval, was part of the ACT’s COVID-19 Response Plan, helping to boost capacity and enhance the territory’s ability to respond to the pandemic.
Aspen Medical built the 51-bed facility in just 36 days.
IPMA is the world’s oldest project management association and is based out of the Netherlands. The IPMA Award is given to projects across the globe that demonstrate project management excellence.
Aspen Medical infrastructure project director Matthew Gygi says the Canberra-based global health care provider had to design and construct the facility from scratch.
“There is no manual for a project such as this,” he said. “We were tasked to build a fully functional medical centre in a very short amount of time.”
With just seven days of design time and 36 days for construction, the facility was built with off-the-shelf and locally manufactured materials to meet the recommended requirements for COVID-19 care by the World Health Organization.
At its peak, there were 170 people working on the project, compressing 23,340 man hours into 36 days. At the same time, the Aspen Medical team had to design standard operating for the medical facility, find staff and be ready to be fully operational from day one.
The COVID-19 Surge Centre was designed as a temporary facility and has been built so it can be demobilised and stored in 24 shipping containers with a barcode system allowing it to be rapidly reassembled if ever required.
The facility will be removed, and Garran Oval remediated once the COVID-19 public health threat has passed.
The COVID-19 Surge Centre in Garran has room for 51 patients, including one bed for palliative care. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
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