St Finians Hospital – Maryborough Centre
Upgrading safety standards with bespoke anti-ligature solutions
- Sector Healthcare
- Location: Portlaoise
- Architect: RKD Architects
- Contractor: Kelbuild
Project Overview
The Maryborough Centre is part of St. Fintan’s Hospital, Portlaoise and is the only inpatient facility at St Fintan’s hospital. The approved centre was located on the ground floor and had its own entrance and provides accommodation and continuing care, psychiatry of later life, and mental health rehabilitation services for the Laois/Offaly area.
Major refurbishment works were approved for the Maryborough centre following the onset of Covid in 2020 to provide safe and anti-ligature compliant accommodation and recreational areas for residents.
We worked closely with the design team in RKD Architects from the initial design stage on this refurbishment project to develop a compliant strategy for patient and staff safety across the entire facility. Our expertise in projects of this nature allowed us to identify and offer compliant solutions to potential ligature points or areas of risk within the facility.
We designed a bespoke anti-ligature doorset solution with integrated anti-ligature hardware for all bedroom, ensuite, bathroom, communal and corridor areas in the ward, in addition to designing and providing an anti-ligature compliant access control strategy to facilitate the movement of both staff and residents in each area of the facility. The bespoke, specialist doorsets were manufactured to the exact requirements of the project at our timber door factory in Mallusk and pre-prepped for all operating ironmongery. This allowed us to supply doorsets which had a concealed closer meaning they could perform as a firedoor while maintaining anti-ligature safety standards. Our hardware solution included anti-ligature levers, locksets, continuous geared hinges, door vision panels for patient privacy and observation, floor spring closing devices and removable doorstops. Additionally, we provided further solutions for patient protection including radiator covers in all areas of the facility and load-release bathroom and bedroom accessories.
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On the exterior of the building the AiPhone audio/video entry system can control both the main entrance door and the carpark barrier system. This allows security at the front desk to manage visitor access to the building while staff can utilise key cards for ease of entry. Internally, due to the nature of the building, there was a requirement to use access control throughout the entire facility. We specified and supplied an RBH online access control system allowing the client to limit or restrict access to certain areas such as cleaning stores to certain staff.
