Four years. This is how much construction time was planned for the new building of the women’s and children’s clinic at the Munich Clinic Schwabing. But the corona pandemic, the war in Ukraine and new technical challenges turned four years into seven. The long construction period has been forgotten; the bright building on Isoldenstrasse is finished in the first construction phase. Now the emergency room, the gynecological clinic, obstetrics, neonatology, six operating rooms and children’s wards including pediatric oncology are housed on five floors. Everything under one roof, everything close to each other. The new house has 150 beds. The first patients can be cared for here on May 13th.
“This is a big step for the Munich Clinic,” says commercial director Tim Guderjahn during a tour of the new building with the managing directors, doctors and midwives. A big step because it was possible to combine the medical areas with state-of-the-art technology and to build a “clinic with short distances” architecturally. For example, after a birth, the babies can not only receive neonatal care immediately in the next room of the operating room, but can also receive intensive care in the delivery room.
The “Wunder Tiger” lettering flashes blue at the entrance. This tiger is the mascot of the Munich Schwabing Children’s Hospital Foundation. The foundation took care of many beautiful details in the new house, such as the digital aquarium on the wall in the entrance area. Anemonefish swim back and forth. It ripples quietly. As soon as you touch the fish with your hand, they dart away and hide. The fish show the way to the pediatric surgical emergency room.
“The children should be able to distract themselves a little,” says Julia Hauer, chief physician at the Center for Children and Adolescent Medicine, in front of the digital fish aquarium in the MRI room.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Fish are also projected onto the wall in the room with the large magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). “The children should be able to distract themselves a little,” says Julia Hauer, chief physician at the Center for Children and Adolescent Medicine. So that it is easier for them to stay still. Parents are also allowed to accompany their child into the room.
“Here we are immediately with mother and child”
Hauer explains that one of the most important goals in the new clinic is to provide care for mothers and children as quickly and as compactly as possible. This applies to the pediatric emergency room and radiology on the ground floor as well as to maternity and neonatology, which are right next to each other on the second floor. Premature babies no longer have to be transported to another ward and can be cared for immediately after birth, says Marcus Krüger, head physician at neonatology in Schwabing and Harlaching. It is crucial that the children can stay with their mother as “intensively as possible”. This is now almost always possible here, says Krüger. “Here we are with mother and child immediately when we are needed. That’s just great.”
The fact that everything harmonizes with each other, that every room is tailored precisely to needs and everyday routine, is the result of many conversations with each other.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
The new building has six delivery rooms. In calming colors, with calming light. There are 36 maternity rooms. Previously there were 27. These rooms, where mother and child spend their first days together, are bright, friendly and have stylized mountain silhouettes on the wall. The planners placed great emphasis on brightness and an elegant ambience.
“The women should feel comfortable with us,” says Olaf Neumann, head of gynecology. What is most important to him, however, is that mothers and children receive immediate, high-quality medical care in the event of an emergency. 97 percent of women who give birth do not need medical technology, he says. But for those three percent who need this help, everything is feasible and possible here in the new house. And he dares to make a statement that he represents with great conviction. “We are the safest place here for mother and child. In the world.”
The reasons he lists for this: intensive care directly in the delivery room, neonatal care for premature babies directly after birth with proximity to the mother, large rooms, three first aid places.
Everything for a realignment of the city’s clinics
The new women’s and children’s clinic with 1,033 rooms is one of the Munich Clinic’s three major construction projects, which is intended to enable a realignment of the city’s clinics. The new building in Harlaching with around 550 beds will be completed in 2025. Here too, medical centers are to be united under one roof. The extension to the Munich Klinik Bogenhausen is also scheduled to be completed in the same year. “Modern medicine is interdisciplinary, so it doesn’t stop at departmental boundaries,” says managing director Guderjahn. Bundling everything under one roof ensures “high quality of care, but also attractive jobs for nursing and medicine in Munich.” Attractiveness that is probably already paying off. According to the Munich Clinic, more nursing specialists could actually be hired again.
Doctors Stuart Hosie (left) and Carsten Krohn inspect the new operating room.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
The city of Munich and the Free State of Bavaria are investing one billion euros in the new Munich Clinic buildings. The construction in Schwabing cost 143 million euros. In the second construction phase, house 25, which is directly adjacent to the new building, will be demolished. An extension building with additional stations will be built there. House 24 on Parzivalstrasse will also be renovated and will then also be part of the new clinic.
The fact that everything harmonizes with each other, that every room is tailored precisely to needs and everyday routine, is the result of many conversations with each other. “Don’t build to meet demand” was important to the managing directors of the Munich Klink. They attached great importance to the fact that everyone who works in this company could contribute their expertise. “Right from the start,” says Olaf Neumann, head of gynecology, “we were involved in the planning.” The result shows how important that was.
Before the first patient is cared for in the new clinic on May 13th and the first mother gives birth to her child in the bright rooms, a lot still has to happen. Every socket is checked, every monitor. “We test everything dry,” says Guderjahn. If this test is passed and medical material is put away in countless drawers and cupboards – then a new era will begin with the women’s and children’s clinic in Schwabing.