Rehabilitation facility and day hospital
Date : 2007Client : Architect Frank Muscat (The Doric Studio)
The Ministry for Health, the Elderly and Community Care, intended to erect a new rehabilitation facility and a day hospital including a car park, a mortuary and an Enemalta substation in the immediate vicinity of St Vincent de Paule Residence for the Elderly at Triq l-Ingieret, Luqa. The mission statement of the Ministry is to promote and provide for the health care needs of the Maltese people and to deliver appropriate services. This is to be achieved through the provision of health care services and the necessary monitoring and control mechanisms.
Once all the acute services of St Luke's Hospital are transferred to Mater Dei Hospital, new rehabilitation facilities would be required to complement the activity of same. Mater Dei Hospital is a secondary and tertiary health care facility with 804 beds, 78 day beds and 29 stations for renal dialysis service. The Government's decision is to set up facilities to provide comprehensive and integrated rehabilitation for patients, prior to discharge to home or to residential care. The facility will have a sufficient number of beds to allow for the efficient use of acute beds at Mater Dei Hospital, avoiding delayed discharges, bed blocking and most importantly, to prevent discharge to inappropriate locations.
Seriously ill and elderly patients take longer to recover from illness or trauma, and decisions regarding discharge locations are taken once a comprehensive assessment of the physical, mental and social needs is made. Since the length of stay in acute hospitals is best kept to a minimum, recovery locations are optimally sited at secondary locations.
The Rehabilitation Facility and Day Hospital is being designed to provide comprehensive, seamless services to its patients and their carers, with links to the acute hospital, community services, long-term care and all the social services that are required for optimal reintegration of patients following a period of rehabilitation, thus avoiding crisis re-admission.
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