Enel Green Power’s solar energy together with the humanitarian commitment of EMERGENCY at the new pediatric center in Entebbe, Uganda, an outstanding medical facility designed by an outstanding architect, Renzo Piano. Enel has donated 2,500 photovoltaic panels to guarantee the stability of the electricity supply and help ensure the continuity of essential hospital services.
A beautiful hospital built using sustainable materials and powered by renewable energy: this is the new center for pediatric surgery inaugurated by EMERGENCY just a few weeks ago in Entebbe, in the district of Wakiso, Uganda.
The center was built thanks to a generous contribution from Enel Green Power, which donated 2,500 3SUN solar PV panels to the facility, with the aim of reducing the costs of purchasing electricity, supplying a part of the facility’s energy needs with renewable energy and reducing the consumption of energy from the grid.
The structure is located just over a kilometer from the shores of Lake Victoria and has been designed to become a key reference point in a country where almost a third of child deaths occur due to the lack of adequate surgical treatments.
The center will treat, free of charge, children affected by congenital malformations, urological and gynecological problems, anomalies of the gastro-intestinal tract, pathologies of the bile duct and cleft palate, and will benefit young patients from across the continent.
“The best way to help Africa is to build the same things there that we’d like to have here in Italy,” explains Gino Strada, surgeon and founder of EMERGENCY. “We went to Uganda with all the expertise, equipment and technologies necessary to perform high-level surgery in an extraordinary facility. We are all part of the human community and as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, we are ‘equal in dignity and rights’. We have a responsibility to provide medical treatment to an African child in exactly the same way we would an Italian child.”
Cutting-edge treatment and assistance
The center, which has already welcomed its first patients, is on the cutting edge not only in terms of the medical services it offers but also concerning its architecture.
It was designed, in fact, pro bono by the Studio Renzo Piano Building Workshop in partnership with TAMassociati and the Building division of EMERGENCY. Spanning almost 10,000 square meters, the structure houses three operating rooms and 72 beds, including six intensive care beds and sixteen sub-intensive care beds; an observation and stabilization room; six outpatient clinics; an X-ray department; a laboratory equipped with a blood bank; and a CAT scanner.
The hospital complex, which will have a full staff of 400, also includes various other buildings that house a pharmacy, administration offices and auxiliary services, a guesthouse for foreign patients, a welcome area and health education zone, as well as an outdoor play area.
ENEL POWER
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