The CHU’s new Mother-Child-Haematology unit (FEH – Femme Enfant Hématologie) has been welcoming its first patients over the past weeks. This new department reunites the former Mother and Child unit and the department of haematology. All of the departments likely to call upon this technical and surgical platform are now reunited on the Côte de Nacre site.

The public-private partnership approach

The public-private partnership approach
To ensure the design, construction, funding, use and maintenance of this new hospital unit, the CHU concluded a public-private partnership (PPP) within the context of a long-term hospital lease (BEH). The contract was signed in March 2006 with the company Nacre 2008, which reunites three shareholders (ABN-AMRO, QUILLE and EXPRIMM), also the project’s initiators. For a period of 25 years, Nacre 2008 will provide the CHU with a building designed to sustainably fulfil its health care mission, placing priority on the construction’s capacity to ensure health safety, on efficient operational cost management and on the property’s longevity. In return, the CHU will be paying an annual rent of €13.3M inclusive of VAT, partly funded within the framework of the Plan Hôpital 2007 health policy. As such, upon termination of the lease, the lease-holder (in this case the French State) will become the owner of the property.

A giant in health care is born. After only 29 months of construction and development work, the FEH (Mother-Child-Haematology unit) is now operational. The CHU’s main building, which overlooks the new unit, took a total of 7 years to build… And this vast project, completed by Quille, a subsidiary of the Bouygues Construction Group, represents a total budget of €72.87M. Given the great scale of the FEH project, the CHU launched a procedure in May 2004 in order to contract a long-term hospital lease (BEH - bail emphytéotique hospitalier in French). Indeed, a legislative provision ⁽¹⁾ now offers public hospitals the opportunity to sign contracts within the framework of a public-private partnership or PPP (see boxed article). As scheduled in the 2002-2007 Master Plan, the construction of the imposing FEH (Mother-Child-Haematology) building, located on the Côte de Nacre medical platform, promises to optimise the hospital’s overall performance. “Reuniting, on a unique site, the technical and human resources (practitioners, anaesthetists…) that were formerly located within the CHRU (Avenue Clémenceau site) is sure to rationalise the hospital’s organisation and boost the quality of the services it offers,” stresses Christophe Tiger,  the CHU’s assistant manager and coordinator of its functional management (repair/building work, logistics, health care…). Furthermore, the maternity unit has been classified level 3, the best possible rank in terms of equipment, skills and know-how.

A total capacity of 345 beds

The FEH building is a genuine cornerstone of this positive strategy, reuniting over 35,000m2 and four floors, the following services: paediatrics (consultation, emergency, hospitalisation), obstetrics (postpartum period, nurseries, “kangourou” units ⁽²⁾ and reproductive biology), childbirth sector (maternity, neonatology, paediatric reanimation, gynaecological hospitalisation and high-risk pregnancy surveillance) and finally, haematology. With a total capacity of 345 beds, the unit employs, since its inauguration, around 110 doctors, 47 interns, 582 other health care professionals and 63 administrative employees. “The arrangement of the various functional units within the building allows a spatial organisation that is more horizontal than it is vertical,” adds Christophe Tiger, who is also the CHU’s management representative ⁽³⁾ within the Nacre 2008 consortium in charge of the completion of the contract reuniting the two partners (public and private). All activities related to a given medical discipline are grouped together on the same level. Similarly, we also paid particular attention to organising physical movements and traffic. Hence, walkways link the unit with the main tower.” Special care was also afforded to the building’s exterior aspect. The construction of the FEH building has offered Caen’s CHU a new, younger look, evocative both of modernity and efficient health care and of attention to patient comfort. The architects Architecte-Studio consequently associated two architectural elements, polished concrete and metal. The streamlined yet gentle silhouette of the metal facade of the central “nave” contributes to offering the building a warm and welcoming appeal. “The hospitalisation wing’s polished concrete facades also symbolise the great precision required when performing any medical procedure,” details Hélène Muller-Sauvage, the CHU’s communication executive. And the helipad, located on the roof, offers improved patient service and security.

A new reception area for the CHU       

But the architects have also innovated inside the building. Public access (for medical consultations, visits…) to the hospital buildings (FEH and main building) is now via an atrium which forms the CHU’s new main reception area on level 0. The egg-shaped conference room, located in the centre of this vast hallway, is quite striking. And to brighten up the entire building, hospital rooms, corridors and stairways now boast “flashy” colours. fuchsia red, lemon yellow, bright orange, petrol blue, lime green… The atrium also offers a cafeteria, boutique, hairdressing salon and hotel accommodation, within which priority is given to families and friends of hospitalised patients, then to visiting practitioners and lecturers. Located within the immediate vicinity of all of the FEH’s external activities, of staff headquarters and teaching premises, of staff cloakrooms and the ground-floor car park alongside the entrance, the area has been designed to serve as a genuine “village square” for Caen’s CHU.

(1) Based on articles L.6148-2 of the code of public health.
(2) A health care concept for the newborn reuniting security and the mother-child relationship during maternity.
(3) Since Liliane Lenhardt’s departure in May 2009.

Christophe Tiger
Quality, Risk management, Patient and International Relations Department
Caen University Hospital,
Tel: : 02 31 06 48 87

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