Medics have to leave

Detour due to conversion costs around 26 hours per day

The Linz "Sisters" will be renovated at a cost of around €200 million by 2030. For two years, the access route for the emergency services will be longer.(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

Four minutes there and four minutes back. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot in terms of masses. Paramedics bring up to 250 patients a day to the "nurses" in Linz. For two years now, they have had to walk and rush across the building because of a building site.

Because the current entrance forecourt at the "Sisters of Mercy" hospital in Linz is being rebuilt - the new building section M is being constructed - the former rescue access to the underground car park is history. For at least two years, the paramedics will have to park "around the corner" in Langgasse and transport patients across the hospital instead of simply into the elevator.

250 admissions per day
A journey takes about four minutes. And because up to 250 patients are brought to the hospital per admission day, this adds up to quite a lot: The Federal Association of Rescue Services has calculated "conservatively" with 200 admissions and has thus arrived at 1600 minutes per day. That's more than 26 hours and the equivalent of an ambulance standing still all day. However, the paramedics would lose this time and, in the worst case, important time for emergency patients would be lost.

A year of tinkering with the plan
"We spent a year working with the Samaritans and the Red Cross to find the best way forward," says the hospital. And the corridor alongside the outpatient clinics is wide enough to get through the building quickly and easily. The fact that the paramedics have to pass patients waiting in the outpatient clinics is not possible in any other way during the renovation work.

No complaints so far
"The conversion of the rescue access road would have been necessary even without the new building. This is because the new ambulance vehicles are longer and the turning circle would no longer have been feasible," says the hospital, happy to kill two birds with one stone. So far, there have been no complaints from patients who have had to be transported across the building to get to the emergency department. After the renovation, this will once again be possible via a direct route.