Expecting a reconstruction of 4.5 billion crowns at Apolinář hospital

Prague – The maternity hospital U Apolináře in Prague is set for reconstruction costing 4.5 billion crowns. It is expected to be completed in 2030, with construction starting in four years. Repairs at the hospital, where around 4,600 babies are born each year, will take place with minimal disruption to operations, as individual units will be relocated to an extension that will be built first. The project was described by David Feltl, the director of the General University Hospital in Prague, under which Apolinář falls. Alongside the reconstruction project, representatives of the hospital and the academic community also unveiled a statue of the architect Josef Hlávka, who designed the unique campus of the maternity hospital and was born over 190 years ago.

The Ministry of Health, which oversees the hospital, approved the project, allowing the pre-project phase to begin, which includes necessary surveys and geodetic measurements. Next year, an architectural competition and selection of the project documentation preparer will follow. Construction will start in 2025.

"The preparations and implementation of the construction will involve cooperation with experts in heritage care and preservation of the genius loci of the entire location," described Feltl. In the historic building of the Regional Maternity Hospital, where the Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinic of the General University Hospital and the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University is currently located, the first baby was born in 1875. Since then, it has been operating continuously, with over half a million children born there.

"We plan to start with the extension of a new pavilion on the southern border of the property, where we will gradually relocate individual units or operating rooms," added the director. Even before construction begins, a project to modernize the old delivery rooms and one operating room will commence. According to Health Minister Adam Vojtěch (for ANO), this will involve an investment of 55 million crowns.

According to the hospital management, the roof, cornices, and facades made of facing bricks are in unsatisfactory condition. New facilities for doctors and staff will be built, along with areas for the catering of mothers and complete social facilities. Existing delivery rooms will also be refurbished; only those for the most demanding cases will remain in the same location, and a new post-operative ICU department for mothers will be created.

Delivery boxes that no longer meet requirements will be transformed into delivery rooms with soundproof walls and facilities for the companions of mothers. In the new arrangement, there will be six boxes and 40 rooms in the extension for the neonatology department, which cares for premature infants. In the Czech Republic, they account for about eight percent of all births each year.

"The treatment of premature infants often lasts for months and requires the presence of parents," said the chief physician of the clinic, Antonín Pařízek. Therefore, family units for intensive and resuscitative care will be created, which are common in developed countries. According to Pařízek, such care improves the prognosis for premature infants and strengthens family bonds.

In the Czech Republic, there are about 110,000 births per year, with 93 maternity hospitals, and Apolinář is one of the largest. The center for birth assistance that the maternity hospital plans to build during the reconstruction will allow for a more natural birth without the necessary presence of a doctor. However, a doctor will be immediately available if complications arise, which experts say happens in about a third of cases.