120-bed regional referral hospital, delivered in 11 months

The regional ministry of health needed a secondary-care referral hospital for a population of 620,000 with no tertiary facility within three hours. A conventional build was quoted at 38 months. The ministry had 14 months before the monsoon made the site inaccessible for heavy construction. They called us.

The brief was 120 inpatient beds, 4 operating theatres, an 8-bed ICU, emergency department, outpatient, imaging (CT, MRI, X-ray, ultrasound), laboratory, pharmacy, sterile services, dialysis and staff accommodation. Six storeys. Seismic Zone 2. Peak summer design temperature 48 °C.

We specified 340 volumetric modules of three base sizes (6×3 m, 9×3 m, 12×3 m) in an EN 1090 steel frame, assembled on a cast-in-place raft foundation our partner poured while the modules were in production. The envelope is a 120 mm PIR sandwich panel system, thermally broken, rated EI-60 at every compartment line.

Every module was fitted end-to-end in Ankara: MEP terminated, medical gas piped and pressure-tested, flooring laid, casework fixed, equipment installed, and factory-acceptance-tested. Modules shipped by sea via Mersin → Umm Qasr, then by road convoy to site. On-site erection took 9 weeks for shell, 6 weeks for MEP inter-module connections, and 3 weeks for SAT. Handover happened 47 weeks after contract signature, with four weeks of monsoon buffer remaining.

• Week 0Contract signature and 30% design freeze.
• Week 1–6Detailed design, tender of long-lead medical equipment, site survey.
• Week 3–30Module production in Ankara — 14 modules per week at peak.
• Week 18Foundation raft cast on site (partner), ready for module arrival.
• Week 22–36Modules shipped by sea, 20 sailings, 17 modules per vessel.
• Week 28–37On-site erection — 9 weeks shell, 6 weeks MEP interconnect.
• Week 43–46SAT commissioning with ministry and third-party witness.
• Week 47Handover. Hospital opened to patients on week 49.

The hospital received its first patients 49 weeks after contract signature, with full license and ministry acceptance. Eighteen months post-opening, it is running at 94% occupancy and has been designated the reference trauma centre for three governorates. No structural or envelope defects have been reported; one minor HVAC control issue on level 3 was resolved under warranty in week 54.

Life-cycle cost per bed-day is within 4% of our original estimate — a margin that has allowed the ministry to fund expansion on an adjacent parcel, which we are now building.