The project was to offload and move into Glasgow Dental Hospital two new sterilisers and four washer disinfectors which then had to be taken to the sterile area, installed and connected to existing services in the sterile services department on the 5th floor. 

The hospital is on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow and the original plan was to erect a scaffold tower with an access platform to the 5th floor. We would then offload the equipment from a delivery vehicle by crane and the machines would be lifted onto the scaffold tower and placed onto skates for transporting within the building to the Sterile Services Dept. Sauchiehall St is a main shopping thoroughfare in Glasgow and closing part of the road to install the scaffold tower and position the crane would cause great disruption. The police would agree to the closure on a Saturday night (for traffic a quiet time of the week) but warned us that our labour force might increase substantially when the pubs closed for the night! The method also involved removing a large window and some masonry.

We consulted with the hospital authorities and reviewed other options and agreed a novel solution to the problem.

The lower floors of the hospital are built into a hill so the fifth floor on Sauchiehall Street is a basement when viewed from the small street behind.  From that street there is access to a hospital car park on the roof of the lower hospital building.  Part of the car park is built over the solid rock behind the hospital but the rest (being the roof of the lower building) would not take the weight of a crane.  However, we could offload the equipment from a delivery vehicle standing in the street behind.  Then we stood our crane partly in the street and partly on the solid part of the car park.  The floor of the car park was cut into using diamond cutting tools to create a plug which was then removed. The equipment was lowered through the opening made by removing the plug into the fifth floor below.

The machines were then transported some on skates and some on pallet trucks to their final positions. They were then bolted to the floor and connected to the relevant services i.e. electricity, water, steam and air.  All our waste from packing cases etc. was placed into the skip we had arranged and then removed from the site.

The concrete was replaced in a manner which allowed it to removed in the future to allow a regular access way for equipment into the lower floors of the hospital.  So although this option was in the first instance a more costly proposal, it would have major advantages for the future.

We also avoided a policing problem on busy Sauchiehall Street by thinking outside the box.