Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo will be anything but typical. As a teaching facility, built and operated solely by donations, it will provide a benchmark of healthcare excellence for the children of Egypt and the Middle East, incorporating Western standards of technology, infection control and care. For the first time, this region will benefit from a playful, family-oriented facility created according to principles of “positive distraction.” As one of the largest hospitals in the world dedicated to pediatric cancer care, it can double in size, both horizontally and vertically.

Treatment and recovery will be achieved by combining medical-surgical care with a regionally sensitive and playful atmosphere, consisting of art, activities and education. From a distance, the building’s large structural screens mounted on the exterior skin of the bed towers resemble sails atop vessels navigating the Nile River. Although metaphoric, these forms are functional, providing shade and energy conservation for this fully sealed glass building

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PROJECT CATEGORY Project in Progress (2003)

CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR Dr. Hesham Dinana, Association of Friends of the National Cancer Institute (AFNCI), Project Managing Director, +(20) 2-365-5233

FIRM Jonathan Bailey Associates, (469) 227-3900

DESIGN TEAM Dr. Sherif Abouel Naga, Managing Director (AFNCI); Randy Pool, President (BR+A Consulting Engineers_Florida, Inc.); Ingbert Larsson, Project Manager (Skanska International AB); Eng. Hassan Maltawi, Project Coordinator (Hamza Associates)

PHOTOGRAPHY Paul Bardagjy

BED CAPACITY 150

TOTAL BUILDING AREA (SQ. FT.) 400,000

TOTAL LAND AREA 107,639 sq. ft.

TOTAL COST (EXCLUDING LAND) $64,000,000 (U.S. dollars)

Patients and visitors will be mesmerized by a four-story domed structure spanning the atrium lobby’s musical carousel. Adorned with a giant diamond-screen television, this lyrical sphere provides a landmark at the main entrance for passersby on their daily trips through the arches of the ancient aqueduct from the Old City. Patients and families enjoying the security and comfort of the therapeutic gardens adjacent to the hospital’s outpatient center will also be able to view the diamond-screen television

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Because the site is near a public mosque, staff and visitors will have convenient access for prayer times during the day. When time is of the essence, a dedicated prayer room in the hospital, with adjoining ablution rooms to provide foot and body cleansing before prayer time, will accommodate spiritual reflection. Large sitting areas with gender separation will be equipped with appropriate toilet room fit-outs. These communal environments will offer refuge to groups of family members who will travel long distances to see loved ones.

The hospital design is highly functional. The unique “cloverleaf” nursing unit layout is unusually flexible. Each of the three 10-bed modules (or clusters) will be able to change function to provide critical, medical, surgical or hospice care. Handheld computer devices will give nurses more mobility and closer access to bedside activity. Convenient patient server rooms will house medical records, supplies, medications, linen and computer/phone workstations. Although modules will be monitored from the central nurses’ station, each can be equipped with a nurses’ substation


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