Brussels, 8 March 2016 - Clinic Saint-Jean is pleased to announce the inauguration of its new accident and emergency (A&E) premises, an occasion attended by Brussels ministers Guy Vanhengel and Didier Gosuin and about 100 guests. These new ultra-modern A&E premises boast a surface area that has trebled in size, a reception area doubled in capacity and new, modern equipment. There has been a total revamp of the patient’s care path to give him a better reception, greater comfort and optimal quality of care. The department is expected to open on 10 March 2016.

Everything in the new A&E premises at Clinic Saint-Jean is new and everything has been revamped for greater comfort, enhanced efficiency and added modernisation. The department is fully designed to ensure what is referred to as ‘dynamic’ management of the patient: the patient follows a diagnostic path on arrival, at which point he is received in one of the three orientation rooms.

“The orientation room is similar to a medical consultation room. The main function of this first stage is to prioritise the management of each patient. Based on the patient’s pathology and the seriousness of his case, the nurse will make an initial diagnosis and assign him to a specific space where he will be attended to. Obviously, the most serious cases will be managed more quickly. In addition, if at a given moment during his diagnostic path a patient has to await results and his condition requires him to sit or lie down, he will enjoy the necessary comfort in every location. Our patients also benefit from having an increased number of rooms that are more spacious and illuminated by daylight”, explains Dr. Robert Leach, head of the A&E department at Clinic Saint-Jean.

What’s more, a new paediatric space has been created. More than one out of every ten patients admitted to A&E is a child. That is why this space has been set up, with toys and special decors, and the means for isolating children so that they are not exposed to diseases from adults.

The new A&E is at present situated in the same location as the intensive care department and the operating theatre zone, which is a huge advantage; it will no longer be necessary to switch to a different storey to transfer a patient that is unstable or in a life-threatening emergency situation.

From the point of view of equipment, Clinic Saint-Jean has also replaced all of the existing equipment with new, modern devices: new beds, trolleys, medical apparatuses, screens, etc. For example, the service now has “computers on wheels” and this enables the staff to show the test results directly to the patient.

“In 2015, we recorded over 40,000 persons passing through our A&E department. This represents an increase of almost 10% within the space of 5 years. It was important for Clinic Saint-Jean to invest in a new A&E to increase our surface area and capacity, as well as to improve comfort levels for our patients and staff. The construction of these new facilities would have called for more than 17 months of work. The new A&E would not have materialised without the daily efforts of many members of staff from the various services and departments of Clinic Saint-Jean and the collaboration of numerous technical firms in several cutting-edge fields. We thank them for all the work they have done and are happy that our patient complement can from now on benefit from these new facilities thanks to their work”, affirmed Dr. Benoît-Ph. Hermans, General Manager of Clinic Saint-Jean.

The A&E is expected to be open to patients by 10 March 2016. The new facility will be accessible only from rue du Marais 114 (at right angles to Boulevard du Jardin Botanique) via an access ramp. Access is no longer possible from inside the Clinic.

The A&E telephone number remains the same: +32 (0)2 221 91 00

About Clinic Saint-Jean

Drawing on a hospital tradition going back more than eight centuries, Clinic Saint-Jean boasts a complement of 558 beds and offers all of the medical, physical and mental health services. It makes cardiac surgery, radiotherapy, neurosurgery maternity services available and a maternity department that manages more than 2200 deliveries per year. Clinic Saint-Jean is aiming to position itself as a known and renowned professional organisation and as a major hospital for patient-focused AND quality-based care in the Brussels region and surrounding areas.

With the support of its 1400 highly specialised professionals spread over 3 locations (Botanique, Méridien and Léopold I), it certainly offers personalised, high-quality care with a view to restoring and promoting the health and well-being of the patient. Respect for cultural, philosophical and religious diversity also plays a central role in this regard.