Children’s Memorial Health Institute – Care uninterrupted Warsaw, Poland
Over the past 60 years, the Children’s Memorial Health Institute in Warsaw has expanded significantly. To keep pace with that growth, the hospital needed to upgrade its elevators – no easy task in a place that never stops. Our team modernized 17 elevators and installed five new ones throughout the hospital – all while keeping noise and other disruptions to a minimum, allowing the hospital and its staff to continue doing what they do best – offering uninterrupted care.
Key facts
Project stakeholders
- Owner: Polish Ministry of Healthcare
- Main Contractors (for major extensions): Warbud SA
- Architect (for major extensions): Kuryłowicz + Architekci
Challenges and client brief
- The aging vertical mobility systems required modernizing to keep operations running
- The hospital had to remain open throughout, making minimizing disruption paramount
- Some elevators shafts required redesigning to meet modern standards
Schindler solutions
- Installation of state-of-the-art units
- Meticulously coordinated modernization schedules across all 22 elevators to minimize disruption
- Where required, new floors were added and shafts reconstructed
Project highlights
The walls of the Children’s Memorial Health Institute (CZD) in Warsaw burst with art and color. Monsters pull faces, superheroes show off their strength, and cartoon animals offer friendly smiles. In a place where children spend long days in treatment, the vibrant scenes occupying the walls of the never-ending corridors offer welcome distraction and comfort.
As Poland’s largest pediatric institution, the hospital operates around the clock. Families move between floors – from consultations to imaging to patient wards. Medical staff shuttle equipment and supplies across multiple interconnected buildings. Specialists treat patient after patient. In operating rooms, surgeons perform procedures.
And through it all, the elevators keep moving, carrying patients, parents, doctors, beds, wheelchairs, and medical equipment up and down.
We had to ensure the highest level of employee and patient safety while minimizing disruption,” says Marcin Markowski, New Installations Supervisor at CZD hospital.
So, when the Children’s Memorial Health Institute set out to modernize its aging elevator system – a patchwork of equipment from different brands – the constraint was crystal clear: the building couldn’t pause, not even for an hour, and patient care could in no way be compromised.
This wasn’t lost on Schindler New Installations Supervisor, Marcin Markowski, who oversaw the modernization of 17 elevators across the hospital grounds and the installation of five new ones in the hospital’s newly constructed psychiatry and oncology wing. “We had to ensure the highest level of employee and patient safety while minimizing disruption to departments and maintaining elevator access for patients and emergency services,” Marcin explains.
Careful planning to minimize disruption
The solution required surgical precision in planning. After careful analysis of the hospital’s requirements, Marcin and his colleagues spent weeks mapping out every potential constraint the project could present. Among other things, they inventoried shafts and machine rooms, measured structural capacity, and analyzed potential conflicts between elevator cabling and electrical systems and ventilation. They created detailed schedules for each of the 22 elevators.
The operating principle was simple: only one elevator could be shut down at a time in each zone, ensuring that at least one working unit remained operational at all times.
Avoiding disruption became the team’s mantra. Their work was scheduled around the hospital’s surgical calendar. Teams worked at nights and weekends when the hospital was less busy. And they built temporary enclosures around shaft doors, thereby ensuring safety, controlling dust, and maintaining the hospital’s sterility standards while work progressed.
Adapting while upgrading
For all the team’s preparedness, the project presented its fair share of curveballs. For one, the hospital’s sprawling structure took some getting used to. “Initially, I found it challenging to navigate buildings connected by hundreds of corridors – the main technical corridor in the hospital is 320 meters long,” explains Marcin, who's been with Schindler for 17 years now.
Elevator shafts showed curvature issues from decades of use. One elevator required reconstruction to add an extra stop at the machine room level. Midway through the project, the hospital identified an opportunity to convert two elevators to meet fire service standards – an upgrade that required redesigning systems and adjusting schedules on the fly. “Constant adaptation was needed,” recalls Marcin.
Looking back, Marcin reflects on the unique challenges of this project. “Working in an operational hospital is more demanding than other modernization projects,” he says. “The coordination requirements are more complex, the operational constraints are more rigid. Accessibility and safety standards are higher. The schedule is tighter, and the time windows shorter. You’re working in an environment where people’s lives depend on keeping everything running.”
For Marlena Kiliszek, Key Account Manager Modernization at Schindler, the project represents something else too – the opportunity to showcase Schindler’s ability to handle complex, high-stakes environments. “You need to have a thorough understanding of the hospital environment and requirements. You visit, you talk to doctors, administrators, a lot of people. In the end, however, it is important to understand what’s really needed.”
“You talk to doctors, administrators, a lot of people. In the end, however, it is important to understand what is really needed.”
Marlena Kiliszek
Key Account Manager Modernization
Fit for the future
The Children’s Memorial Health Institute is now equipped with elevators fit for a leading medical institution: maximum cabin width for beds and equipment, sliding doors with full-height curtains, durable steel sills. For accessibility, each elevator includes induction loops for the hearing impaired, voice signaling inside the cabins, and Braille markings.
In the background, energy-saving regenerative drives reduce environmental impact. All units, now integrated with the hospital’s building management system, come equipped with cloud connectivity, enabling remote diagnostics and proactive maintenance through our Technical Operations Center.
The project is proof that large-scale hospital modernization can be achieved without disrupting care – and without adding extra stress to an already stressful environment. With its elevators now modernized, the hospital can focus on what it does best – helping children heal, while the superheroes and cartoons keep watch.