Tooronga Veterinary Hospital: Access Control, CCTV and Duress for a New Hawthorn East Facility

Tooronga Veterinary Hospital in Hawthorn East is a new building housing two things at once: a veterinary practice, and a co-located emergency service that runs around the clock. People arrive with animals they love, often at the worst moment of their week, and sometimes at three in the morning. Integrated Security Services was brought in during the build to design and install a system that supports the people working there without getting between them and the animal on the table.

A hospital that does not really close

An office empties out at six and fills up again at eight. A veterinary hospital with an emergency service attached does not work like that. Staff come and go at hours nobody would call normal. Clients turn up unannounced because something has gone wrong. The parts of the building that need to be open change depending on the time of day and who is on shift.

That pattern is what the security had to fit around. Lock it down too hard and you slow down the people trying to help an animal. Leave it loose and you have a staff member alone at night with a stranger at the door. The job was finding the line between those, and putting it in the right place for this particular building.

What the team actually needed

We started with the people rather than the floor plan. Director Dr Adem Mercan was clear that staff safety in emergencies was the thing that mattered most, and he describes access control and cameras as an extra layer of protection for both his team and his clients. That framing decided a lot of what followed.

It also ruled a few things out. Security that announces itself, makes clients feel watched, or adds a step to every movement through the building would have worked against the atmosphere a vet practice depends on. What was needed was a system that stays out of the way until somebody needs it.

Designing while the building was still going up

New builds move. Decisions that looked settled in a drawing get revisited once the walls are up and somebody walks the route for the first time. Lift access changed. The way people would move through the facility changed with it. Each of those needed an answer quickly, and an answer that the builder could work with.

This is the part that separates a security contractor from a security partner. Handing over a fixed design and disappearing until installation week is easier, and it leaves the client carrying every change themselves. We stayed available through the build, worked the problems as they came up, and adjusted the design where the building had moved on. Dr Mercan has said he could reach us by email, phone or text and get a technical answer back without waiting, which is what made the lift access question a short conversation rather than a delay.

What we installed

The hospital runs on Tecom Challenger for access control and intruder alarm, with duress built into the same system. Hanwha cameras cover the areas where footage is actually useful, and a 2N intercom system handles the two public entry points.

Putting all of that on one platform matters more than the individual brands. Access control, alarm and duress share a system, so an event in one is understood by the others and the team has one place to look rather than three. The commercial CCTV sits alongside it, and the intercom is what turns a locked door into a conversation.

Two doors doing most of the work

The intercom covers the car park entrance and the front door, and those two points carry most of the day-to-day load.

At the car park, the intercom talks to the lift, so getting a visitor up to the right floor is one action rather than somebody walking down to meet them. At the front door, it is what makes after-hours emergency work manageable. Somebody arrives at two in the morning with a sick animal, presses the button, and a staff member can see and speak to them before deciding to open anything. That is a small thing on paper and a significant one at two in the morning.

A way to call for help

Duress is part of the Challenger system rather than a separate box bolted on beside it. A staff member who needs assistance has a way to raise it without announcing to the room that they are doing so.

Most people who work in a veterinary hospital will go a whole career without using it. It is there for the handful of occasions when someone is distressed, grieving or angry, and a vet nurse is on her own with them. Those occasions are rare and they are exactly why the feature exists.

Open with the security already sorted

Because the system was designed into the build rather than added afterwards, the hospital opened with it working. No retrofit, no surface conduit run down a finished wall, no list of things to fix once the practice was already busy. The team had control over who gets in where, vision across the site, and a way to call for help, from the first day they saw patients.

It is also a system that can grow. The same approach carries into other sites and other facilities, which is how we handled the multi-site standard on the Scania Australia Campbellfield upgrade.

What the client said

Dr Adem Mercan talks about the project in his own words here.

Proficient, efficient, great communication, great workmanship, just easy to deal with.

Dr Adem Mercan, Director, Tooronga Veterinary Hospital

Talk to Integrated Security Services

We design and install commercial security systems for healthcare, education, councils and businesses across Melbourne, and you can see more of that work on our recent projects page. If you are planning a new facility, the cheapest time to get the security right is while the walls are still open.

Contact Integrated Security Services to talk through alarm systems, access control, CCTV and intercoms designed around the way your site runs. Call 1300 992 090 or email info@integratedsecurity.com.au.