Maina Soko Medical Center was built for the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Zambia for the use of the armed forces in a military base where the old hospital building stood. The medical center covers 22,500 sq.m. in several buildings.

The main building, consisting of four floors, houses departments of emergency medicine, in-patients, imaging (CT, MRI, RAY-X, Ultrasound), laboratories, blood bank, day clinics, VIP wing for hospitalization and treatment of government official and an array of operating rooms and intensive care.

There are separate and dedicated buildings for the following: dialysis center, orthopedic rehabilitation center with a therapeutic swimming pool, pharmacy and morgue and a central pharmacy.

Another building houses support services, such as a central kitchen, laundry, central pharmacy, maintenance, staff residences (22 apartments), medical gas production center, sterilization center, power center, biological waste treatment center, vehicle repair and service shops, military administration and church.

All buildings were built to a high western standard, including building control systems and closed circuit camera equipment. The standard of electromechanical systems is high, similar to hospitals in Israel.

All the buildings were delivered fully equipped, including hospital wear and uniforms, clothes for in-patients, towels and all the necessary supplies for full operation (except for drugs and dressings). A training system was also established to train the teams to use all the equipment provided.

The construction process and challenges

The construction of the project was dotted with many difficulties due to the lack of qualified professional workers locally, especially in finishing works. This required the Ashtrom team to

teach and train workers how to work correctly and precisely. This was a major challenge considering the deadline requirements and the specified quality.

The construction was also carried out in the midst of the global corona pandemic with delays in shipments of electromechanical equipment that was shipped from around the world and medical equipment that was sent from closed Europe, which was under a lockdown due to the pandemic. Another challenge was dealing with shipping logistics and disinfecting the equipment that was received against the coronavirus.

The installation of the medical equipment was also delayed due to the equipment manufacturer teams not arriving. This was especially true of the teams of Phillips, a major supplier of the medical equipment. The operation of the medical equipment, and the training of the local teams, was often done through zoom video conferencing. Yet despite all these obstacles and challenges, the project was completed two months before schedule – to the client's full satisfaction.

To ensure that the medical center's staff maintain the facility as required, a team was left at the center for another year to help the staff with learning and practicing maintenance and repair with the help of the various suppliers and contractors.

The medical center was designed and executed with close attention and foresight to details of the ongoing maintenance of the buildings, systems and operational and medical equipment. Throughout the entire length of the projectt, the project management took great care to design and execute the project at the highest level and made sure that all deficiencies were repaired prior to the delivery of the project.