Could you design a hospital?

Could you design a hospital?
Monday, September 11, 2023 by Staff

Did you ever play the PC game, Theme Hospital? It came out in the 90s and players were given an empty building to turn into a hospital. As well as designing layout of the rooms, buying equipment and hiring staff members, players had to decide things like where to put chairs and how many trashcans and potted plants to include – and that’s before starting to actually treat patients!

FaithCare is building a hospital in Nigeria; a simple statement but a huge undertaking! Here are five things that might not be obvious, but are important to take into consideration when building a hospital:

Space – especially making sure there’s enough parking and seating available and designing the layout to accommodate crowds. On our mission trips to Nigeria, we can see up to 1000 people per day!
Security – this could be in the form of security guards, alarm systems, surveillance cameras, etc. Basically, we want to make sure the doctors, volunteers and patients are kept safe.
Power – hospitals need things like refrigeration, excellent lighting and medical equipment. We need to have a backup such as a generator in place to keep things running in a power outage (it’s a third world country after all, and power supply isn’t always stable…).
Housing – for volunteers and guests
Food – staff, patients and visitors will all need to eat, so there will need to be a cafeteria or kitchen of sorts to prepare food. Maybe even a shop or restaurant for family members and visitors.

It’s a LOT to take into consideration! We’d love it if you could pray for God’s wisdom for us as we make all of these decisions and plans. We’ll keep posting updates as we go, so you can share in the experience with us. If you’d like to see how else you can be involved with FaithCare – either internationally or in the U.S. – check out our website.

(Want to try your hand at hospital building? Here’s a demo of Theme Hospital! Unfortunately, it only works on PC, not phones – enjoy the 90’s graphics!)