After quickly finding a market for its energy-efficient building envelope solutions, a Kingston firm has developed new mobile health units to help medical providers quickly add capacity to treat or isolate patients.
Feris Build Tech has developed a building envelope system made of lightweight steel and expanded polystyrene foam. These prefabricated panels allow builders to construct a home more quickly than using traditional construction methods and significantly reduce the occupant’s energy consumption for heating and cooling.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the firm quickly saw how its product could help hospitals and community clinics prepare for a potential surge in patients with mobile medical units that could be used as assessment and treatment centres, transition spaces for staff and patients, disinfecting stations as well as quarantine and self-isolation units.
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For Ginger Bertrand, some of her earliest childhood memories in Ottawa are centred around healthcare. “I grew up across the street from what was originally the General Hospital,” she explains,
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Zaahra Mehsen was three years into a biology degree at a local university when she realized she wanted to take a different path. “I realized that it’s not my thing,”
Even beyond the current pandemic, COVID-19 is likely to have a lasting impact on Feris Build Tech’s market, says CEO Scott McCready. With fewer people commuting to an office building each day, McCready says he expects to see an uptick in demand for his company’s units that can be used as backyard studios and home offices.
“People are being forced to reimagine how they live and work,” he says, adding there is already growing interest in small, affordable homes – particularly in cities such as Kingston and Ottawa that have policies promoting laneway or coach homes.
To hear the full interview with McCready, watch the video above.
