Our Community

Can you believe that it was over 6 weeks ago that we last checked in on our hospital development? Lots of activity has happened since then so we thought we should kick off the month with an update of what has been going on during August.

It may be holiday season, but there were no holidays and break in activity at The Ralph. It has been a really busy few weeks with lots of progress made. Here is our round up.

Making everything safe and secure

First and foremost, we have been busy making sure that the hospital is fully fireproofed. Fireproofing prevents the spread of fire from one area into another. It is a key part of making sure that our hospital is safe and secure for everyone; our people, our patients and our pet-carers as well as any other hospital visitors.

 

A dedicated lead inspector was on site to ensure that the works being carried out were always done to the outlined standard before being signed off.  When all of the building works are complete, we will be issued with a certificate declaring that our hospital is fit for occupation – so we will be having plenty of important inspections over the coming weeks.

The kitchen is the heart of the home (or hospital!)

We hope that the kitchen and open plan eating area will be the hub of the hospital for our people. A place for them to prepare nutritious food, to catch up with one another, and to make that all important brew! So, it is vital that this space is welcoming as well as functional.

This month, we have been working with our interior designers to select our kitchen layout and finish. We will be installing a Howdens kitchen that fits with the clean, airy aesthetic of the hospital and that provides us with lots of storage space. And of course, lots of necessary equipment and as many mod-cons as we can pack in – fridge/freezer, kettle, toaster, microwave, coffee machine and water cooler.

So, no photographs for you just yet, but stay tuned as we can’t wait to show it off once it is installed.

Close your eyes and imagine

Since taking ownership of our new home on Globe Park, we have had several versions of the designs for the hospital spanning our launch phase as well as plans for our future expansion.

But finally, this month, we were able to start walking around the rooms. They started out as marked out spaces with the partition walls to follow. This gave us a great opportunity to get more familiar with the layout and to ‘feel’ how the rooms will function.

What you are looking at here is a view inside the cat ward with the treatment room and the enrichment room.

 

Knocking down walls

Whilst it might seem counter-intuitive, we actually had to take some walls down. We needed to demolish part of the wall around one of the entrances in preparation for the delivery of our MRI scanner.

We needed to ensure that there was a 2.6m square hole to allow for the delivery of the magnet which will be safely stored until the machine itself gets delivered later.

And so, a few lines of bricks needed to be removed to make that happen. But it didn’t take long, and we are now set for our MRI (or more specifically our GE SIGNA Explorer 1.5T 16 Channel) to be delivered.

 

And building new ones

Plenty of new walls have been constructed over the past month. And every day, more and more seem to appear. It started with the partitions going up first as you can see in the photographs below.

The photograph on the left shows the partition wall between the dog consult rooms and the waiting areas. The photograph on the right shows the corridor providing access to the consult rooms taking shape.

    

This was followed not long after by the fixing of the plasterboard to the partition walls as shown in the photograph below. This photograph shows the co-joining wall between the dog and the cat ER and ICU areas. Let us reassure you that the hole in the middle of the wall is meant to be there – this is our vision panel between the two separate ER and ICU areas.

As you can see, August has proven to be a busy month for us all at The Ralph, and in September, we promise more of the same! Only a few months to go now until we open the doors so full steam ahead!

Check back in soon for more updates and take care.

The Ralph Team