Trellidor donates security door to King Edward VIII Hospital

Trellidor was a supplier to the nursing quarters and kitchen refurbishment project at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban in 2014, leading to the donation of sliding Trellidor Clear Guard doors to secure one of the new family rooms.

King Edward VIII Hospital is a tertiary level hospital providing services to the whole of KZN and part of Eastern Cape. It has 852 beds and serves about 22 000 out patients monthly.

Pigeon population a health hazard

Commercial kitchens, particularly in health institutions, have to comply with the highest health and safety standards. Like many city buildings, King Edward VIII hospital has a resident pigeon population.

These birds roost indoors wherever possible, bringing with them parasites and diseases that can be passed on to humans. If allowed into the kitchen, the birds could be a threat to food safety. This could be a serious problem in a kitchen that provides 1000 meals a day for patients and staff.

The contract awarded to Trellidor to address this problem was to custom fit Trellidor Clear Guard security screens to all the kitchen windows. 

This Trellidor security barrier design is a humane way of keeping the pigeons out of the building. The security screens solve the problem of pigeons getting inside by fully covering the windows and blocking out the birds.

The security screens are made of a see-through woven stainless steel mesh panel with a strong aluminium frame. The mesh panel insert also helps to keep other hazards such as mosquitoes out of the kitchen. 

Further benefits of using Trellidor Clear Guard include:

• The screens allow some airflow through the mesh.
• They block out strong winds.
• They filter out damaging UV rays and excessive heat, helping to moderate the internal temperatures.
• They can be locked for safety purposes and to prevent petty theft.
• The security screens can be opened and moved out of the way for easy window cleaning.
• They are see-through and do not block the view of the outside.

The Trellidor team custom measured and manufactured sliding Clear Guard security screens for the kitchen windows.

We also fitted fixed Trellidor Clear Guard panels to a bank of large windows on the south side of the kitchen. These fixed panels look very similar to the sliding screens, but they cannot be opened. This is a useful design for windows like these that are very high up, large and inaccessible except to the pigeons.

Security screen donation to protect staff

The main function of Trellidor Clear Guard is to help keep criminals out of buildings, rather than pest control. So we found another use for our Trellidor Clear Guard screens at this hospital.

Many of the staff bedrooms at King Edward VIII Hospital open out onto a common area, where people get together or simply walk passed the residences. The bedrooms are at risk of opportunistic theft by people walking inside from the common area.

To prevent this happening, Trellidor donated sliding Clear Guard security screen doors to protect one of the new family apartments. These screens were fitted next to the glass sliding doors. With the security screens closed and locked, no-one can get inside, even when the glass sliding doors are open.

The security screens are see-through, so anyone inside the apartment can see who is outside, adding to the security of the occupants.

The screens also:

• Help to block out the worst of the Durban summer heat.
• Let some fresh air into the apartment through the mesh panel.
• Allow the occupants to feel part of the garden, so they don’t feel hemmed in.

“King Edward VIII is a teaching hospital for the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine. It has a Nursing College attached to it. The buildings we’ve been renovating date back to the 1970’s and were abandoned in the mid-1990’s after they became uninhabitable,” said project architect Angela Baker.

“We’ve been renovating it block by block together with the Department of Public Works as part of the KZN Health Department’s Revitalization Program, converting the old fashioned dormitories into living quarters. The newly secured family apartment is one of these and we’re very happy with the result.”

To find out more about Trellidor Clear Guard security screens contact your nearest Trellidor franchise.