Jessa bundles care campuses into green framework

Responding to healthcare trends

Jessa Hospital wants to transfer its three existing care campuses to a new care park on the Salvator Plus Site in Hasselt. After the announcement of the winning competition design in March 2021, things remained quiet around the building plans for a long time, but there is movement on the file.

"Behind the scenes, we worked very hard to come up with a supported preliminary design," says general manager Dr. Yves Breysem. "The layout of the entire site has largely been sketched out. The car-free park that embraces the hospital is an eye-catcher and an absolute added value for Hasselt. In the coming months, the hospital design will be further refined."

The entire site is 20 acres in size. The master plan includes an area for the construction of an educational campus. This will allow healthcare training to be organized near the new hospital. No concrete plans have yet been drawn for part of the site. In time, Jessa may expand there.

The construction site is located along Hasselt's city ring road and the E313. The design team places the new hospital on the south side of the site and transforms it into an urban fringe park, as a possible part of a green-blue recreational network. A landscaped underpass for cyclists and pedestrians under the Luikersteenweg road plays an important role in connecting the new hospital, the city and the landscape. The forest is a central feature of the care and city park.

The existing stream will be preserved and will be used more intelligently within an integrated and sustainable water system. By making the area more suitable for rainwater retention and infiltration, the site also contributes to solving the problem of dehydration in Flanders. The park will have water features, small walking paths, a sunbathing lawn and, in the immediate vicinity of the hospital, a quiet shade garden. The "castle garden" of the former castle 't Hollandt will be preserved, respecting its original character. Along the highway side, the high-rise announces the city. On the park side, the building is conceived on the scale of the park. 'Hard' road users are guided around the site to the main car park along the service road to be widened on the E313, which connects to the central reception area. 

The hospital will have three tiers, according to types of care. The eighteen-story tower volume is intended for patients who are admitted to the hospital only for a short time or very acutely, such as in maternity, intensive care, internal medicine or surgery. The horizontal "park wing" is intended for patients who must stay in the hospital for a longer period of time, or very frequently, such as in geriatrics, palliative care, (pediatric) psychiatry, rehabilitation, the oncology center or dialysis. The third section, the medical-technical "plinth," forms a hinge between the two wings and serves patients who need urgent care, such as in the medical imaging department and in the operating theater. A central hall connects the three tiers.

"The design allows a lot of flexibility, both at the room level and at the level of entire departments," said medical director Dr. Jos Vandekerkhof. "Partly because of digitalization, in the future the hospital will become a place you visit noticeably more often but for shorter periods of time. Shrinking one offering and expanding another is relatively easy in this design, thanks to optimal interchangeability of available spaces. The design takes into account future evolutions in healthcare, with the intended number of hospitalization beds becoming smaller than today. Each trend translates into the design. For example, there will be combination wards, where we link a geriatric section to a number of hospitalization wards. There will also be more space for rehabilitation and an integrated GP outpatient department, and the design provides for more places in the day hospital."

The construction cost is estimated at 500 million euros (excluding VAT) and will be paid for with its own funds, loans, government grants and a construction fund set up by the medical corps. It is scheduled to open in 2031.