Rising from the ashes: Montserrat’s New National Hospital
29 years ago, Montserrat’s brand-new hospital was destroyed by the volcanic eruption that buried the capital city in mud and ash and made half of this Caribbean island uninhabitable. Now, finally, work is starting to build a New National Hospital on Montserrat, designed by Article 25.
Our architects on the project, Branca Pegado and Joe Davis, were in Montserrat a few weeks ago to hold public information sessions, talk to the Ministry of Health and visit the site. They were excited to see that work to prepare the site for the new hospital had just begun.
For the past 29 years, Montserrat residents have been using a ‘temporary’ hospital set up in a former primary school in St John’s. This was never intended to be a permanent solution for the island. The current hospital consists of eight separate buildings, many of which are old and not hurricane-resistant. Our New National Hospital will be built on the same site with a completely new, innovative design that is much more suitable.
Construction is due to begin in 3-6 months’ time, and should take two years to complete – we will be managing the build to make sure it’s completed on time and on spec. The building contract is going out to tender soon, and we will support our government client to choose a company to work with.
Breaking news is that the Montserrat National Trust has offered to research and provide all the plants for the site, as a project to reforest the area using native species!
Montserrat needs a unique hospital
Around 5,000 people live on the island of Montserrat. Despite the small population, it needs a hospital with a wide range of services and departments - A&E, maternity services, radiography, outpatients – quite unusual for a hospital of its size.
“In the UK, you can be transferred to another nearby hospital that has the specialist services you need,” Branca explains. “But in Montserrat, that’s not practical. The nearest hospital is on another island like Antigua, which requires a plane or boat to reach. And while it’s not that far (90 minutes by sea), the journey is dependent on Caribbean weather conditions. Services are often suspended or delayed due to severe weather.
“Until this month, patients needing a CT scan had to fly to Antigua on a tiny aircraft – if it wasn’t too windy. I’m excited the hospital recently got funding for its own CT scanner which arrived at the end of last year and is already in the process of being installed.”
This project poses some other unique challenges too.
The delivery of essential hospital supplies can take months to be delivered due the remote location of the island, so the hospital design needed to include lots of storage room to accommodate these bulk supplies.
Importantly, the hospital needs to be resilient to earthquakes and hurricanes. The previous Montserrat hospital was destroyed by a combination of hurricanes and earthquakes. Our design therefore includes specialist measures like hurricane-resistant shutters that can lower over every open corridor and window.
It’s also very difficult to get building materials to Montserrat – they all have to be delivered on a container ship, so more items can’t be ordered spontaneously.
But these are the sorts of challenges we love. Article 25’s expertise in designing buildings to withstand natural disasters, and getting projects delivered in remote locations where resources are scarce all contributed to the government choosing us to design and deliver the New National Hospital.
As Mr. Hannes de Bruin, the government’s project manager said: “Once this hospital is built, it’s going to be the safest building in Montserrat.”
“We know what works in tropical climates,” says Branca. “For instance, plasterboard isn’t going to be suitable here, the climate is too humid and it isn’t widely used so it would be challenging to find professionals with installation experience - we know this from working in similar tropical environments. When we first visit a site like this, we even go to the local B&Q or equivalent and see what materials are readily available there so we can keep imports to a minimum.
“Our cost consultants on this project are based in St Lucia and our engineering partners have worked with us on other builds in the Caribbean.”
With a project this unique, we always strive to make sure the design meets the real needs of the people who are going to work in and use the building. In the design phase we spent many weeks consulting with every person who works at the hospital, from surgeons to cleaners, so we know that what we are creating will actually work in practice.
We’re thrilled to see the project getting off the ground as we enter 2024 – the people of Montserrat have needed this hospital for a long time. You can read more about the design on the project page. It’s fun to note that this will be the first public building in Montserrat with a lift!
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The project is funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office through Montserrat’s Capital Investment Programme for Resilient Economic Growth.
