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SACH    News Sheet No 8
December 2001

• Helping Archie
• Chaplain with managerial responsibility
• Contents of News Sheet 8

Helping Archie

Construction work has started on the new £23.5 million Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital, with a completion date towards the end of 2003. The government will contribute £20.5 million (this is not a PFI financed project) and the ARCHIE Foundation, a fund raising initiative, will raise the additional £3 million. A professional fund raising team has been put in place but all money raised will go to the Foundation as the salaries, office costs, printing costs etc have all been donated. The ARCHIE Foundation has been established in light of the experience of other recently built new children’s hospitals in Bristol and Derby when the public spontaneously gave. In those projects, many extras had to be bolted on after the original planning and design phase - in Aberdeen, the plan is to integrate all from the start. The Government will provide “A standard clinical hospital. The foundation….. will make the difference”, hopefully transforming the new hospital into a family centered environment for child health services.

The ARCHIE Foundation will provide
Single care rooms with en suite facilities which can accommodate a sleeping parent
Overnight stay accommodation adjacent to the critical care area
A huge variety of play areas throughout the hospital, in the concourse arrival and hospital main street
Therapy play areas in wards, soft play rooms, alternative sensory rooms
A multi-faith chapel/worship space and chaplain’s office.
The building will rise to five floors with the chapel sited in the first floor main entrance tower next to the high dependency unit, day case unit, therapy suite and relatives accommodation. The chapel itself will be unusual in that it will be oval in shape. The architect having been asked to help create a sense of the religious/spiritual in the overall design shape rather than what will be placed within the chapel itself. Discussions with a multi-faith group have resulted in foot washing facilities nearby and consideration is being given to prayer stools for those of the Buddhist faith and perhaps an electric incense burner. This new chapel is one of a number presently under construction in a number of hospitals in different parts of Scotland. The cost of the new chapel is £100,000 and the chaplain’s office £22,000. 
But why the ARCHIE Foundation? The commitment is to try to ensure that the new Aberdeen Royal Children’s Hospital Is Excellent. 

James Falconer
Chaplain, Grampian University Hospitals

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Contents of News Sheet 8

Top of Page

Contents of News Sheet 8