Sooner or later you will have to face the big question. Is your hospital or clinic Disabled person friendly? In fact very few of the so called well planned medical facilities really delve deep in to design considerations directly affecting disabled people.

Generally when someone mentions disabled person, an image of a wheelchair bound person comes to mind, or maybe someone walking with the aid of crutches. But what about a colour blind person? Or a deaf or dumb person? Or a blind person? Hospital administrators must consider the following aspects of disabled person friendliness:

  1. You may not be able to design your facility to cater to 100% of all of your patients’, staff or visitors’ needs. However, there are some extremely important aspects you must consider to make sure that your hospital or clinic caters not only to fully able bodied person but also to disabled people.
  2. To test one aspect you may want to sit in a wheelchair and go to the nearest bus stop and make your way from there to an outpatient clinic, for example. If the hospital is a multi-level or built higher than the ground level, there must a ramp in addition to the stairs at the entrance. For moving from one level to another, a lift would be required.
  3. Is the reception desk too high for a wheelchair bound person to speak to the staff? What if one of the staff is wheelchair bound?
  4. Welfare facilities including the disabled toilets, public phones, water dispensers and cash dispensers should be conveniently located strategically around the hospital and easily accessible and sign posted. Wash hand basin, mirror and nurse call system in disabled toilets should be at a low level and the size of room should allow wheelchair turning and the door should allow emergency opening outwards if a patient crashes behind the door.
  5. Signage is an important aspect to efficiently direct the patients to their desired destination, in addition to using it for effective “traffic” control. Colour schemes are used to aid distinction between different departments which in turn is used from signage to wall colours. These colour schemes should be chosen with the aid of an interior designer keeping in mind that a colour blind person should be able to differentiate various shades of grey.
  6. Receptions and staff bases should be equipped with induction loops for hard of hearing persons who use compatible hearing aids and clearly marked for public’s information.
  7. Ensuring entrance areas are designed to accommodate patients with slower adaptation rates to darkness and light; marking glass walls and doors should make their presence obvious.
  8. Disabled outpatients visiting diagnostic and treatment areas should not travel through inpatient functional areas nor encounter severely ill inpatients. Disabled patients should have a simple and direct route to each patient nursing unit without penetrating other functional areas.

There are many more details that actually go in to a professional hospital design which are omitted for the sake of brevity or commercial issues. When we actually do a consultancy, consideration is given to all such aspects.

About the Author:
Harry McQue is a hospital design manager with three masters degrees including business management and information technology. Harry has 15 years of international experience ranging from working on hospital projects in Dubai (Middle East) to over £1 Billion hospital projects in the UK. You can benefit from his experience at: www.hospitaldesigntips.com. If there are topics that you would like his advice on, you can get in touch on Harry_Mcque@HospitalDesignTips.com

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