Overview

In 2018 APS was commissioned by by the Dominican Sisters and St Joseph’s hospital to design and supervise the construction of a new maternity ward at the hospital.

This project comprises of an 866 sqm new maternity wing extension to the existing hospital, doubling the number of beds at the facility to 85.

Challenge: Our challenge was to nestle a new and modern maternity ward within an already operational, but aged facility that was not designed for the additional functions it had taken on. Apart from the wards, the new extension needed to have more convenient administration, waiting and processing areas for visitors as well as staff, and adequate ablutions. We quickly realised early in the project that the requirement for the maternity ward needed to be considered holistically with respect to other intended future developments to fully achieve the facility’s “General Hospital” status.

Solution: Starting with the new maternity ward, our plan envisaged a gradual streamlining and modernising of the entire hospital. Critical to this process was a phased roll out of the overall vision to be executed dependant on the availability of funding. This process was a dialogue with the Dominican Sisters, hospital staff and Ministry of Health representatives.

Our proposal was for a functional audit of the existing hospital, focusing on what was currently fit for purpose and functioning well, and what was not. We focused on the short term needs and long term desires with respect to realistic funding aspirations. We achieved this by first developing a master plan for the entire hospital out of which the required design for the maternity ward emerged as the first priority. The resultant overall concept was a single building housing four departments, including maternity, on a single storey and centered around two courtyards.

Our concept proposed that the hospital building would also have a main arrival point or reception lobby where patients would be administratively processed and then directed to the appropriate department. Each department would also have its own reception area for further processing. This meant that every department would be able to function as a standalone unit, with its own front of house, the necessary supporting back of house and the necessary ablutions.

Construction of the maternity department was conducted in two phases. The first phase included the maternity reception area with a nurse’s station, two operating theatres with the required facilities and specialist fittings (including medical gas and air conditioning), a delivery room and two antenatal wards. The second phase included a post natal kangaroo ward, three post natal wards, a labour ward, private rooms and call rooms for the doctors. The new maternity ward has 42 beds, up from the original 43 for the entire hospital.

Visually, the general architectural language of the new ward was guided by the original hospital. However we sought to improve on the provision for natural and artificial lighting and the general atmosphere in the ward by installing larger windows in combination with vibrant wall colours in public areas.  

General Information:

St Joseph’s Mission Hospital in Sakubva, Mutare is one of the 35 functioning mission hospitals in Zimbabwe. The facility was first commissioned in 1954 by the congregation of Dutch Catholic Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of Mercy (SCMM).

The Dominican Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus took over the running of the hospital in 1997. The facility was originally established as an isolated infectious diseases hospital dedicated to handling tuberculosis (TB) cases. However, over the years its services have expanded by necessity to cater for the broad medical needs of the communities around it.

In 2010 the Ministry of Health officially declared it a “General Hospital”. However, it was not modernised to suit its new and expanded role and the increased demand meant that the facilities could not cope. The Dominican Sisters’ strategic offer to provide free maternity (post and antenatal) care to families in the surrounding communities contributed to the upsurge in the number of maternity patients and an overcrowded hospital.