Samsung Medical Center to build negative pressure ward to prepare for pandemics

[Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government]

Samsung Medical Center in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, will build a new negative pressure ward to prepare for future pandemics.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on Thursday that it approved a proposal of modifying facility design for Samsung Medical Center in a meeting held on Wednesday.

The hospital, one of the country’s well-established healthcare institutions since 1994, is undergoing renovations to address its aging building infrastructure and enhance its capacity to respond to infectious disease outbreaks.

In response to the increasing frequency of infectious disease crises, Samsung Medical Center is set to employ a new negative pressure ward as part of its urban planning facility initiative.

The current 1-story fever respiratory treatment room on the south side of the main building will be replaced with a 6-story negative pressure ward, adding 40 rooms to the existing 17 negative pressure ones, resulting in a total of 57.

Despite the existing legal limits on the floor area ratio of 100 percent within the green area, the hospital faced challenges in spatial expansion.

However, in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, hospitals and clinics have been able to raise the floor area ratio to 120 percent when installing infectious disease management facilities, which allowed Samsung Medical Center to use a 5 percent additional floor area ratio for negative pressure beds.

The hospital plans to carry out the project in two phases, with the first phase targeting the expansion of 32 beds by 2025 and the second phase adding eight more beds post-2029.