EOH mobilises containers in virus battle
● EOH is combining the engineering and ICT skills of its staff to build mobile intensive care units (ICUs) modelled on shipping containers to help in the fight against Covid-19 in SA.
The group believes there is potential to develop the concept into a commercial enterprise that could be used elsewhere.
The brainchild of an EOH subsidiary, Dihlase Consulting Engineers, the idea was to help the government in the fight against the pandemic, but the company says it could be used as part of the health-care value chain in the future.
It has been in discussions with private hospitals and dental surgeries which are keen to make use of the technology.
EOH business executive Milton Streak said the concept arose after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for more field hospitals and access to critical treatment facilities to treat Covid-19 patients.
Globally, health-care systems have taken “immense strain” in terms of hospitalisation, said Streak. “I don’t think any health-care system has enough beds or ICU beds or ventilators to fight this [Covid-19].”
Mohammed Rawat, regional manager at Dihlase, said that two days before the lockdown was implemented his team came up with the idea for the ICULATE isolation ward, which is based on locally sourced shipping containers and adapted into a mobile ICU unit.
The 12m containers used are partitioned to create a 6m isolation ward and an adjacent plant room that services it.
Rawat said the primary intention wasn’t a commercial enterprise, but “there were costs incurred and if we can get orders during these times, we take it”.
A single container could take one or two beds, he said.
“If you’ve got one bed, then it will have the ante-room, which gives you better pressurisation, and it’s 100% compliant with international and department of health standards,” he added.
“You can take that container, put it onto a truck and take it anywhere in SA or internationally and it could be a fully fledged ICU.”
Multiple containers together in a cluster could form an emergency facility in a field hospital setting, which could include between eight and 30 units grouped together.
Rawat said the units could also be boltons to existing hospitals where there was a need to extend capacity.
He said EOH is also looking at a retrofit option, where teams can transform an existing general ward into an ICU and isolation ward. This extends to other facilities such as dental surgeries, which will need extra protection as lockdown restrictions ease and people return to dentists.
Rawat said the interest EOH has received so far is from large private hospital groups, as well as two dental facility groups.
It is also in talks with provincial health departments, particularly in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
He said the ICULATE solution would likely be in more demand when coronavirus cases peaked later this year, so the task now was to prepare for that.
Streak said that as far as the potential commercial benefits were concerned, EOH hadn’t thought that far ahead, but believed this kind of solution would always have a place in the health-care value chain.
It could be used to fight the spread of communicable diseases such as Ebola, for instance. “You can transport and use this across the continent. It’s designed for infectious diseases,” he said.
You can put it onto a truck and take it anywhere in SA or internationally Mohammed Rawat
Dihlase regional manager