Members of the maintenance team at Delta Hospital took the Optimist behind the scenes for a glimpse at the infrastructure that keeps the busy Ladner facility running.
Beyond the hustle and bustle of hallways lies a complex collection of equipment, pipes, cables, panels and switches that make up the building's electrical, water and air systems.
Every piece of equipment in the hospital has an asset tag, says facilities maintenance and operations chief engineer/supervisor Ryan Vidulich. Clerks enter that information into the system and every week it generates preventative maintenance measures on which pieces of equipment need to be checked, he explains.
Vidulich compares it to taking your car in for an oil change.
But in these cases, the check-ups are on items like air handling units, pumps, wheelchairs, ceiling lifts and beds, he says, noting basically everything you see in the hospital goes through their hands.
The hospital is powered by four
600-volt lines that come in off the power wall to a kiosk and then into a transformer, explains Vidulich as a constant hum fills the air.
In the case of a power outage, a transfer switch sees the outage and generators fire up to take over, however Vidulich says the hospital is on a good grid.
Andy Emes, the maintenance and operations manager at Delta and Peace Arch hospitals, says the hospital is governed by CSA standards as well as building and fire codes.
He notes a lot of annual testing is carried out, listing sprinklers, alarms and generators as a few examples.
For the hospital's generators, on top of an
annual check where they are run to 100 per cent of their capabilities, weekly and monthly testing is also performed.
Air handling units, which are
important for patient care, allow an operating room to have sterile air, for example. The units are located upstairs.
The hospital's building automation system allows the maintenance team to have a look at the facility's air handlers. Notifications are sent out if any problems arise.
"So we know right away. If something happens ... it goes through our building automation system, we get a page, or we get an email that something's happened," says Emes. Another part of the program is maintenance requisitions, says Emes, noting anyone can put in a requisition if they have a problem.
There really isn't a typical day for members of the maintenance team, Vidulich adds. Their attention could be on fixing a temperature problem, or plumbing or a bed.
"We get calls on everything," he says.
In the end, maintenance team members understand why they're there.
"It's because the patients are here and staff have to support the patients," says Emes.
