Wellington Hospital Maternity ward

While we were on level 4 installing new pipework at Wellington Regional Hospital as part of the wider copper pipe replacement project, we also upgraded the birthing suites and NICU parent rooms. Our scope included a refresh of 12 birthing suites, shower and toilet areas and replacement of the copper pipes. We converted the parent rooms at one end of the NICU from non-clinical spaces to state-of-the-art cardiac areas, allowing families to spend time with their babies with full access to intensive care. Along with the five parent rooms, we added a new shared lounge and kitchen.

Working in a live maternity ward and adjacent to a NICU brought extra challenges – mitigating the noise, dust, vibration and odours required careful planning and innovative solutions. We could only replace 3-4 metres of pipework at a time, carefully enclosing the areas and staging the work to minimise disruption and meet tight deadlines, prefabricating as much as we could off the ward.

Working closely with the hospital’s Infection Prevention Control team, we set up air filters and WiFi-connected dust monitors, using an anteroom as a buffer between our work area and the ward. Another key risk was the noise and vibration from concrete drilling for the seismic bracing we needed to install for the services, walls and ceilings. The solution we came up with was to eliminate the use of impact drivers, install sound curtains, and use the existing walls where possible for the services. We were able to limit the concrete fixings required by using services cradles and hangers in creative ways.

Our team did a great job of liaising with the clinical teams working both on the same floor and the floors above and below their work areas over the 2½ years they were on site. They drove the design and build of the extensive services component of the project, developing a model we’ll be able to replicate in future installations for optimum efficiency and safety.