The urgent care unit at the Prague Thomayer Hospital is expected to be completed in March 2029

Prague – The new emergency department at the Faculty Thomayer Hospital (FTN) in Prague's Krč district, costing 2.2 billion crowns, is set to be completed in March 2029. The hospital serves about 600,000 people, including parts of Central Bohemia, as well as Prague 4, 11, and 12. This was stated by its director, Zdeněk Beneš, on the occasion of the commencement of construction. The hospital also plans to build a heliport nearby and a parking garage on the land towards the neighboring Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM).

"The emergency department will centralize the admission of patients, whether brought in by the emergency medical service or those who come on their own," said Health Minister Adam Vojtěch (ANO). Currently, the hospital has a surgical emergency department in another pavilion and another for various health issues, with ambulances also transporting patients to several different facilities.

According to Vojtěch, the current distribution of departments across many pavilions complicates operations. "The emergency department will be a unified point of entry with imaging methods and basic patient treatment," he added. The department will also be prepared for mass casualties, being able to accept up to 60 patients within an hour of notification.

About half of the construction costs are covered by grants from the Ministry of Health, 620 million is from European funds, and 475 million from the hospital’s own resources. "The construction was not entirely simple to prepare, as the hospital is in a heritage-protected area," said Jan Halíř, the economic deputy director of FTN. The complex is based on the original functionalist Masaryk homes built from 1926 to 1940 according to the design of architect Bohumír Kozák as a retirement home, an almshouse, and an institution for sick children.

The new building, located near the recently reconstructed lung clinic, will have a floor area of 15,000 square meters and will house 100 beds, of which 18 will be in the anesthesiology-resuscitation regime (ARO). The building will have three operating rooms and diagnostic equipment, such as a computed tomography (CT) scanner and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). There are also plans for the use of photovoltaic panels, rainwater harvesting, and green roofs.

According to information from the hospital, there are plans to modify the gastro operation, create a pediatric center, and insulate other pavilions. In the future, modifications at the intersection are also planned to facilitate the arrival of ambulances. The vicinity of the hospital is also changing due to the construction of metro line D, with a new private polyclinic expected to be built on private land.

Preparing construction projects in hospitals often takes many years. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) reminded that his previous government decided in 2020 on several investments, which were to include this construction. "So far, only the pavilions at IKEM have been completed from all those projects," he added. Some are in progress, with the construction of a maternity hospital in Brno still pending.