The New Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal has been inau­gu­rat­ed

The cer­e­mo­ny was addressed by Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Stubb. The last time such a cer­e­mo­ny was held was almost 50 years ago.

The new Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal was inau­gu­rat­ed with a fes­tive cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day, 23 Octo­ber. The cel­e­bra­tion was held in the main lob­by of the new hospital’s Build­ing A with around two hun­dred guests, and at best, around 1600 spec­ta­tors fol­lowed the event remote­ly.

The cer­e­mo­ny was addressed by the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Fin­land, Alexan­der Stubb, who not­ed in his speech the new hospital’s vision to be the smartest hos­pi­tal in the world by the end of the decade. The Pres­i­dent said this was an excel­lent goal, although he also stressed the impor­tance of encoun­ter­ing peo­ple and the nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als’ role in this. In his speech, Pres­i­dent Stubb also point­ed to the last time the Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal cel­e­brat­ed a sim­i­lar event. On that occa­sion, the guest of hon­our was the then-Pres­i­dent Urho Kekko­nen.

The wel­come speech was deliv­ered by Tapani Töl­li, Chair­man of the Region­al Board of North Ostro­both­nia, and the speech of thanks was deliv­ered by Ilk­ka Luo­ma, Direc­tor of the Well­be­ing Ser­vices Coun­ty of North Ostro­both­nia. Bish­op Juk­ka Keski­ta­lo of the Dio­cese of Oulu blessed the new premis­es and the work car­ried out there. The event was host­ed by Miia Turpeinen, Direc­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal.

After the speech­es, Pres­i­dent Stubb and Kai Pajala, Chair­man of the Region­al Coun­cil of North Ostro­both­nia, per­formed a rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny using equip­ment brought from the hospital’s oper­at­ing the­atre. The rib­bon was held by Ter­hi Nevala, Chief Physi­cian, and Mer­ja Mer­iläi­nen, Chief Nurse. The sur­gi­cal instru­ments were hand­ed over by Anit­ta Tan­hua, Head of Nurs­ing.

Build­ings A and B of Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, which are now start­ing their oper­a­tions, will house the hospital’s func­tions that need to func­tion 24 hours a day on every day of the year, such as inten­sive care, surgery, mater­ni­ty and emer­gency ser­vices. The build­ings also house a large part of the hospital’s in-patient wards.

Although the inau­gu­ra­tion marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for the Kon­tinkan­gas hos­pi­tal cam­pus, con­struc­tion will con­tin­ue for some time – Build­ing F, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion, is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed by sum­mer 2025. In addi­tion, the ren­o­va­tion pro­gram includes Build­ing C, which has not yet been decid­ed but is planned for the com­ing years. Around 200,000 m² of new build­ings will be built on the cam­pus. The total cost of the renew­al pro­gram is around €1.6 bil­lion, of which new con­struc­tion will account for around €900 mil­lion.

Source: Text — Suomen Tieto­toimis­to STT . Trans­la­tion — Busi­nes­sOulu

Image: OYS