From pencil drawings, to a building site, to a jewel in the crown of Collegiate Crescent Campus in just three years - the £15 million health building at Sheffield Hallam University officially opened at the beginning of 2005.
Furnished with £1 million of top-of-the-range equipment, it is home to future nurses, paramedics, physiotherapists and social workers. They have given it their resounding approval, along with staff and visitors from local healthcare services who visited the building which features among its facilities a new digital x-ray suite, an operating theatre and a gym.
Diana Marsh, the faculty's technical manager who headed up the project, said, "People think it's wonderful. It's so new and shiny and unique, it's just great. Lots of work went into the planning of the building. We even visited other universities to see what other people were doing in healthcare facilities, to build on their strengths. We didn't rush it because we really wanted to get it right.
"Each area is set out as it would be in a hospital. We've actually replicated a workplace environment for the students, with cutting edge design and state-of-the-art equipment."
Europa-Med was a major supplier to the project, providing a package of equipment for the training of nursing, paramedical and operating theatre staff. In its role as an international medical dealer, Europa-Med sourced and supplied a wide range of top quality products from British and European suppliers suited to the advanced facilities in the new training centre.
