Water facilities for COVID-19 field hospitals
Temporary water facility supplier MTD is helping the local health authorities in Rio de Janeiro beat the COVID-19 virus. The company provides the water facilities at four COVID-19 emergency hospitals in and around the Brazilian city.
Worst-case scenarios
State authority Rio Prefeitura ordered the construction of four field hospitals that had to be ready within one month. The COVID-emergency hospitals can accommodate Corona patients to free up regular hospitals when they run out of capacity.
One such field hospital is located in the Rio Centro convention centre. The expo hall now houses a surgery centre, 100 intensive care rooms and 400 bedrooms.
MTD Brazil provided additional waste water facilities, including toilets, pumps and buffer bags.
Global network
According to CEO Hans Verhoeven of MTD his company has currently 30 projects for Covid-related emergency centres around the world. Many are field hospitals, but also Covid-testing streets, temporary morgues and designated quarantine locations.
MTD is based in the Netherlands and is specialised in mobile water facilities for large events world wide. For this, the company has a network of warehouses in several countries that enables a flexible response to unexpected changes as a project progresses.
Changing requirements
'In this respect, the construction of water facilities for emergency hospitals is not different from events”, explains Verhoeven. 'In the UK we are building a huge field hospital, with 2000 beds and while we are building new insights emerge, such as the need for additional showers for health workers.'
'Because we are accustomed to work under time pressure and changing requirements, our personnel developed a can-do attitude that is essential for these kind of projects', he adds.
In this particular case in Rio de Janeiro, MTD only supplied facilities for the sanitation in addition to the regular facilities of the centre. 'In other projects, like in the UK, field hospitals are set up with tents. In those cases we provide all water facilities, including the shredding of paper bed pans and water fire protection systems.'
Many large events cancelled
Annually MTD provides water facilities for over 1,500 events worldwide. This year the company had many large events in its order portfolio, including European Football Championship, World Expo Dubai and the Olympic Games in Tokyo. 'Because of the pandemic many events have been cancelled and we hope that the events for later this year or in 2021 will go as scheduled', Verhoeven says trustful.
On the one hand, the pandemic caused a lot of organisations to cancel their 2020 events leaving MTD empty handed. But on the other hand it also brings the company new rewarding projects. 'We have been contacted for more Corona-related water projects in the US and in Africa”, he assures. “Nevertheless the emergency hospitals are different projects. It has a far more serious undertone."
More information: MTD Pure Water
