“We’re very pleased with this merger," said Serge Gétaz, director of the Cogest’ems Foundation. The goal of the briefing last November was to present details of the future psychosocial facility Le Rond-Point with 43 beds, to be located in the upper part of the village.

It will be built around the Pôle Santé health centre and part of the L’Etambeau land use planning map, which will also include a new Pays-d’Enhaut hospital and a new retirement home. Presenting the plan to the public will take place in early February, provided that the necessary permits to submit the application will have been obtained by then.

Three separate buildings
The architects practice Siegrist Theubet from Biel, who won the architectural competition launched in June 2017, presented their project with plans, models and 3-D images. They explained all aspects in the context of constructing the three buildings, which will house adult and elderly psychiatric residents and the administrative offices.

Start date: Autumn 2020
If there’s no objection to the publicly available plan, the earthworks and foundation digging for the future facility should begin in autumn 2020. The work is due to take two and a half years, ie up to January 2023. The total investment costs amount to almost CHF 15.6m.

The construction of Le Rond-Point is in line with the Cogest’ems Foundation’s desire to respond as effectively as possible to the changing needs and care of people with mental health problems.

Finally, the Foundation will have three facilities compared to the current four: the 43-bed Le Rond-Point medico-psychosocial facilities, the 13-bed Chanella and the 40-bed L’Ours nursing home, which makes a total of 96 beds. According to the press release, this represents an increase of ten beds and around ten jobs will be created.

Based on AvS
Translated by Justine Hewson