Ratamokeskus Hospital is the new health and social services centre of northern Kymenlaakso

The long-awaited hospital Ratamokeskus was completed near an old garrison area in Kotiharju, Kouvola, at the beginning of the year. Health clinic services and special medical care will both be provided under the centre’s roof. Sweco was involved in the project management and construction of the multi-stage project.

In January 2022, a new health and social services centre of the future, serving more than 180,000 local residents in Kymenlaakso, was completed in Kouvola. It will improve the accessibility of health and wellbeing services in seven different municipalities. Special medical care and clinic services will both be available in the centre, as well as round-the-clock emergency services. Ratamokeskus will also provide many of the mental health, rehabilitation and substance abuse services in the Kouvola region.

“The first patients will come to the dental clinic at the end of April, and the first outpatient clinics will be opened a few weeks after that,” says project manager Kai Heiskanen from Kymsote-Kiinteistöt Oy. Ratamokeskus will become the workplace for about 500 healthcare professionals, many of whom have been able to visit the premises in advance. “We have received plenty of positive feedback on the brightness and comfort of the new facilities. And new is always new.”

Happy ending for the multi-stage project

The planning process of Ratamokeskus was first launched as early on as in 2015, when the purpose was to build a Kouvola city hospital in the area. However, the project came to a halt due to the health and social services reform and was then relaunched by Kymsote-Kiinteistöt Oy in 2017. Sweco’s contractor consultant Ville Harviainen remembers well the challenging foundation conditions, which required piling. “The earthworks were technically challenging, as the moist and humus-rich soil required reinforcement to stabilise it.”

Along the way, the construction phase of the two-stage project implementation was changed from a total contract to a collaborative project management contract. “This ensured that there would be sufficient contract bids,” Harviainen says. The contractor also had the chance to suggest changes to the plans to achieve cost savings and improve efficiency. “The different changes then required a great deal of reviewing, up until the building’s handover.”

The hospital was finally completed quickly and within a reasonable budget. “We had to work extremely hard to finish the hospital within 3.5 years after the implementation planning was started,” Heiskanen states. The construction was started already during the planning stages, and piling began even before the construction contractor was chosen. “This allowed us to make use of every month.”

Health and social services centre designed together with the users

Ratamokeskus is a large hospital, both in size and functionally, even though all ‘hot’ services have been centralised to Kotka, instead of Kouvola. The reception rooms are on the first two floors and inpatient wards on the third and fourth floors. The entire fifth floor is dedicated to building technology. However, a modern health and social services centre needs much more than just advanced technology and automation systems.

“To Kymsote, the patient is always the number one priority,” Harviainen says. Building a hospital requires adhering to a wide range of regulations and standards, but the project’s baseline was the functional needs of patients and personnel alike. “Patient safety was a special focus area.”

A balance between the different perspectives was found through cooperation. “We were in contact with the client’s project manager on a nearly daily basis,” Harviainen says. User representatives delivered information from the doctors in charge and other staff members to the designers and the developer. “This made user communications simple and made our work at project management much easier.”

Kai Heiskanen is also satisfied with the cooperation. “No one can do these projects alone – the contracting consultant and the client have to work well together.”