AE Smith delivers HVAC services for Wyong Hospital’s new Palliative Care Unit

Photo Credit: Nicholas Smith

Creating comfort where it matters most

There are some spaces where comfort means more.

At Wyong Hospital’s new Palliative Care Unit, it means creating an environment where patients can feel at ease, families can stay close and healthcare teams can focus on providing care during some of life’s most difficult moments.

Recently opened on the Central Coast, the purpose-built unit has been designed around privacy, dignity and connection, with 12 patient bedrooms, family and communal spaces, private gardens and areas that allow loved ones to spend meaningful time together.

Behind those spaces are the building systems that quietly help make that comfort possible.

Supporting a space built around care

AE Smith was engaged by Renascent to deliver the HVAC as part of the refurbishment and transformation of an existing building at Wyong Hospital.

Working under a design and construct model, our team delivered a new Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) system, integrated into the hospital’s broader Building Management System (BMS).

For patients, families and staff, the technology itself should largely go unnoticed. What matters is the environment it creates — spaces that remain comfortable and controlled when the people using them have far more important things to think about.

That sense of purpose was particularly significant on this project.

The new Palliative Care Unit forms part of the NSW Government’s World Class End of Life Care Program being delivered by Health Infrastructure.

It has been developed specifically to support patients and their loved ones through end-of-life care closer to home.

Making modern services work within an existing building

Creating the finished environment, however, came with a very practical challenge.

Rather than starting with a blank canvas, the project involved extensively refurbishing an existing building at the eastern end of the Wyong Hospital campus.

For the AE Smith team, that meant installing a significant amount of new plant and equipment within an existing timber-truss roof structure where space was extremely limited.

It called for careful planning and coordination to make the new mechanical services work within the constraints of the existing structure, while delivering a system suited to the requirements of a contemporary healthcare environment.

The result is largely hidden from view — and that is exactly how it should be.

Above the ceilings and behind the controls is a new HVAC system supporting the bedrooms, family areas and shared spaces below, helping maintain the comfortable environment the facility was created to provide.

A project with a lasting purpose

For AE Smith, this project represents more than the completion of another HVAC installation.

It is an opportunity to see our work contribute to a space that will be relied upon by Central Coast patients and families at an incredibly important time in their lives.

We’re proud to have played our part in bringing the new Wyong Hospital Palliative Care Unit to life and to support a facility designed, above all else, around the comfort and care of the people who use it.