Construction at Rambam, one of the largest building projects ever conducted in Haifa, has entered the critical stage. Close to 20,000 concrete mixers are set to deliver more than 100,000 cubic meters of concrete to the site, which will house an underground parking lot, an emergency underground hospital  and new children’s, oncological and cardiological hospitals.

June 13, 2010 marked the beginning of the concrete pouring phase of construction at the Rambam Health Care Campus. This stage is part of a huge project, which will extend over three years, and will include the completion of an underground parking lot, an emergency underground hospital   and new children’s, oncological and cardiological hospitals. In the words of the hospital’s Head of Engineering, Arie Berkowitz, “This is a mega-project, the scale of which Haifa has never seen.”

Rambam has geared up for a complicated logistic event, involving tens of thousands of concrete mixers. The transfer of great amounts of concrete has been planned together with the Haifa police department and municipality. To allow the passage of heavy vehicles, the main nearby thoroughfare will be closed for several months.

Concrete casting at the site                                                           RHCC©

Head of the Department of Engineering, Arie Berowitz said “Construction at Rambam is one of the largest projects done in the city in recent years and it has now entered a critical stage. “Last week we completed the digging phase, during which we dug a huge crater at the entrance to the hospital. During the digging, 250,000 cubic meters of earth were moved. This phase also involved the removal of great amounts of seawater that penetrated the pit. The water was routed back to the sea, during the first process of its kind ever conducted in Israel.  Eighty one underground pumps and another 16 surface-level pumps removed 12,000 cubic meters of water. To guarantee continuity of the pumping process and prevention of the re-entrance of water to the pit, the diggers employed generators that backed up the existing electrical system.

Now, the immediate goal is creation of a concrete frame for the underground parking lot. In addition to the parking lot, concrete making its way to Rambam will be used to construct the frame for the
new Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital, the Joseph Fishman Oncology Hospital and the new cardiology hospital.

The scale of the work is expected to be enormous, both in relation to previous projects at Rambam and to the city of Haifa. The Hanson company, which is supplying concrete for both the parking lot and the three new hospitals will provide Rambam with no less than 110,000 cubic meters of concrete. By the end of the project, some 18,000 concrete mixers will transport concrete to the pit. The distance to be covered by these vehicles will equal about eight trips around the world.