The Panamanian Ministry of Health has awarded the contract to design, build, equip and finance the Hospital Luis Chicho Fábrega, in the province of Veraguas, Panama, to FCC. The contract is worth 99.2 million euro and is to be completed in twenty-seven months.

The new building, with a floor area of 41,914 square metres, consists of a base housing the Central Services (the ground floor and basement of the complex) plus a five-storey edifice rising above, where the hospitalisation facilities and doctors on duty will be located. The hospital will have a highly developed outpatient programme, and it will have 313 beds and provide 344 parking spaces.

The design, by the prestigious Spanish architects Alfonso Casares and Carlos Lamela, has been crafted in observance of the strictest criteria of environmental friendliness, with the concept of the "sustainable green hospital" ever in mind. The design has taken into account the use of materials having a low primary energy content; it envisages responsible water use; it reduces energy demands to a bare minimum; it optimises building systems in order to improve their energy efficiency; and it takes maximum advantage of sunlight. The outer walls of the building have overhangs protecting the interior from direct sunlight, and there are planted roofs for the base, to improve its thermal insulation. The building is constructed as a modulated, modular affair, making enlargement extremely easy if necessary.

From the construction standpoint, the hospital building may be described as having shallow foundations, a reinforced-concrete structure with 6.40x6.40 spans and 18- and 20-centimeter-thick reinforced concrete floor slabs, with plasterboard partition walls, two types of outer walls (the base's walls are made of large clay-based building units, and the hospitalisation building's walls are made of glass) and landscaped inverted roofs.

FCC's hospital-building experience

FCC has recently built the 110-bed Hospital del Sureste in Arganda del Rey for the Community of Madrid, and it has a long list of references in health service building alterations and construction, including the Hospital Clínico San Carlos (in Madrid), the new hospital in Mataró (Mataró, Barcelona), the Hospital General de Ciudad Real, the Hospital San Agustín (in Asturias), the Hospital Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria (in Tenerife), the Hospital Universitario de Canarias (in Tenerife) and the Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla (in Santander).

It recently began construction of the 300-bed Enniskillen Hospital in Northern Ireland, the first concession agreement of its type to be won by a Spanish company in the United Kingdom.