The fact that the Mainz University Medical Center itself is ailing and has to report annual deficits in the tens of millions with unsightly regularity is not only, but primarily, due to the poor building fabric. The more than 60 clinics, institutes and departments with a total of around 8700 employees are spread over an extensive area on Langenbeckstraße, which with its many pavilions worth seeing and tranquil garden areas is still reminiscent of the city hospital that opened almost 120 years ago. Despite several new buildings, the structures with which the employees have to get along when it comes to treating up to 320,000 inpatients or outpatients a year are correspondingly outdated.
Now a new construction master plan is to ensure “that in Mainz – medically, scientifically and architecturally – the most modern and sustainable university medicine with radiance far beyond the state border is created”, as Clemens Hoch (SPD), the responsible Rhineland-Palatinate science and Minister of Health, promised at the beginning of the week.
The first excavators have arrived
According to Norbert Pfeiffer, Chairman of the Board and Medical Director of the University Medical Center founded in 2009, around 2.2 billion euros are available for this “mega-project”, which should be completed by 2038. On Monday, the first excavators drove up to the site to demolish the aftercare clinic, known as Building 701 for short, which dates back to the 1960s and has not been used for patient care for a long time. Instead, the eleven-story building on the north side of the hospital, which will soon be 40 meters high, was primarily used as a warehouse. Nevertheless, the house should be familiar to many Mainz residents because they have visited friends and relatives there for decades.
A turning point: The old aftercare clinic in Mainz, Building 701, has to disappear so that the “most sustainable and modern university medicine in Germany” can emerge. : Image: dpa
The dismantling of the “no longer to be renovated” building, for which the state is already giving ten million euros, should take a few months according to previous planning. With regard to ongoing operations in the immediate vicinity, special demolition robots are used, among other things, which are intended to carry out their work in the interests of patients and hospital employees with comparatively little noise and dirt. Later, a modern economic and logistics center is to be built on the property, which, according to Hoch, will in future be something like “the new logistical backbone for our university hospital campus”. In addition to storage rooms, additional laboratory spaces, the hospital pharmacy and a central kitchen are planned there. It is still unclear when the first groundbreaking can take place. The estimated construction time is around three and a half years.
“The cleared construction site opens up new perspectives in the truest sense of the word,” said Board Member Pfeiffer on Monday at the construction site. Because the planned logistics building with the most modern equipment will “last but not least make medical care faster and therefore better.” The demolition of the former aftercare, which was built on an area of 67 by 17 meters at the time, “is the start of a highly complex construction project According to the CFO Christian Elsner: “We are glad that things are finally getting started.” The goal is a new University Medical Center in Mainz that claims to “become the most medically innovative and sustainable hospital in Germany”.
As the largest hospital in the country, Hoch said it once again demonstrated its own efficiency during the corona pandemic, whether in patient care or research. This outstanding position must be further strengthened and developed in the years to come.