Where to hide? The new building of the largest hospital in Latvia lacks a bomb shelter 0 16

At the same time, authorities have long struggled to agree on unified requirements for such facilities. The legislation now stipulates that new stationary medical institutions must provide shelters of at least the second category, capable of protecting against shock waves and shrapnel, reports TV3.

However, a transitional period is provided for projects that have already commenced: facilities whose design began before the new requirements came into force can be built without such premises. This is why the new treatment building of the Riga Eastern Clinical University Hospital, construction of which recently started, does not include a shelter.

The Eastern Hospital claims that there are premises being adapted for civil protection needs. However, their exact location and capacity are not disclosed for security reasons, as the facility is classified as critical infrastructure.

Particular attention is drawn to the construction of the new building of the Eastern Hospital, costing nearly 70 million euros, where the Latvian Center for Infectology and the Center for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases are planned to be relocated. According to TV3, architects and designers repeatedly suggested including shelters in the project during the documentation development stage.

However, the hospital rejected this idea, as there were no mandatory construction standards for such facilities at that time.

The security consultant of the Eastern Hospital, Uldis Spriņģis, noted that the project was approved back in 2024, and its development began long before the war in Ukraine. According to him, at the time of the documentation approval, the legislation did not require the construction of shelters in medical institutions.