Townsville University Hospital – Medical Imaging Upgrade

Paynters completed works on a $3.5 million upgrade of Townsville University Hospital’s medical imaging department. This was Paynters fifth consecutive year at the Townsville University Hospital.

The work included the construction of a second MRI suite involving the installation of a Siemens 1.5t Magnetom Sola MRI scanner and a second Siemans DSA suite. The works consisted of extensive demolition and specialised internal fit out of existing areas to allow construction of the new MRI & DSA procedures spaces. Both areas were complete with procedure rooms, control rooms, induction space, cannulation, scrub room and equipment rooms.

During the early phase of the works, the demolition required an intensive level of planning and coordination to ensure interruption was kept to a minimum. This was highly challenging as the main construction area was in the middle of the current operational medical imaging department. One key element for this demolition phase was a complete shutdown of the Hospitals remaining operational DSA to allow reconfiguration of existing running gear. This activity required weeks of planning and pinpoint timing in delivery to ensure that patient disruption was kept to a minimum.

The complete project included three months of pre-construction planning and 11 months of actual construction to complete, highlighting the complexity and challenges of the project despite the relatively small footprints. These challenges were overcome through extensive collaboration with all stakeholders and as a result the project was a huge success.

This project contained multiple programming challenges with key milestone delivery dates of the specialist equipment unable to shift. This required significant coordination and collaboration between builder, subcontractor and client to ensure time slippage was kept to a minimum.