Uganda, the Emergency pediatric hospital designed by Renzo Piano

The new Ugandan pediatric surgery hospital in Entebbe, on Lake Victoria – Photo Marcello Bonfanti

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A country in which infant mortality under the age of five is 49 deaths per 1,000 births. About 10 times more than Italy. It is Uganda, an equatorial African country where 30% of these deaths are caused by the lack of adequate surgical treatments. This is why Emergency has opened a pediatric surgery hospital in Entebbe. Thanks to the support of the local government, a chain of benefactors and the free work of the designer, it is a structure that rivals the most modern and surprising western clinics, signed by an international “starchitect”.

The new Ugandan Surgical Center of Excellence was born from an unusual meeting between Gino Strada, surgeon and founder of Emergency, and Renzo Piano, one of the most important architects in the world. The hospital is located on the shores of Lake Victoria, at 1,200 meters, in a green and healthy area. The first patients are named Ramadhan, Topista, Justine, Katongole, Matovu and Jordan. They are between 3 and 11 years old and have been hospitalized for problems with the genital, gastrointestinal and supraumbilical hernias. The Entebbe hospital will treat free of charge all children under the age of 18 suffering from congenital malformations, urological and gynecological problems, gastrointestinal tract anomalies, biliary system pathologies, cleft cheeks.

The beginning: Renzo Piano gives the first blow with a pickaxe for the excavation of the foundations, behind him Gino Strada – Foto Emergency

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«The best way to help Africa – declares Gino Strada – it is doing the same things there that we would like to have here too, in Italy. We went to Uganda with all the skills, the equipment, the technologies necessary to do a high-level surgery. We are all part of the human community, “equal in dignity and rights”, as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have a responsibility to treat an African child exactly as we would an Italian child ».

The Entebbe Center effectively triples the availability of surgical beds for children in Uganda and will become a reference point for the entire African continent for surgical needs. After the Salam Center for Heart Surgery by Emergency opened in Khartoum, Sudan, in 2007, Ugandan is the second center of Anme, the health network of excellence in Africa founded in 2010 on the initiative of the Italian NGO, to which 11 African countries have joined .

Photovoltaic panels and insulating coating for the environmental sustainability of the building – Photo Marcello Bonfanti

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The property covers 9,700 square meters and features 3 operating theaters, 72 beds, including 6 for intensive care and 16 for sub-intensive care, 6 outpatient clinics, one radiology, one laboratory with blood bank, one CT scan, pharmacy, guesthouse for foreign patients and an outdoor play area. The whole project was done pro bono by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. «I like to think of Africa as a laboratory for the future – he explains Renzo Piano – and not just as a scenario of suffering and forgotten wars. Gino has always asked me to design a “shockingly beautiful” hospital, because for some people it is a scandal to offer beauty and excellence to everyone, especially the most disadvantaged. In all African languages, swahili first, the idea of ​​beauty is always accompanied by the idea of ​​good: there is no beauty without goodness ».

The walls of the hospital were built in pisè, a traditional construction technique that uses raw earth, which maintains a constant temperature and humidity in the building. Particular attention to environmental sustainability, with 2,500 solar panels photovoltaic. Lo staff is made up of 385 employees, of which 179 health workers. 80% of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technicians are local professionals. Non-medical staff are 95% local.

85% of doctors and nurses are made up of local staff – Foto Emergency

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“The country is not entirely devoid of health facilities, nor of medical culture, but it needs international collaboration to expand the offer and for the training of specialists”, he adds Rossella Miccio, President of Emergency. “The opening of the hospital represents a turning point for the children of Uganda and the East African region,” he said Ruth Aceng Ocero, Uganda’s health minister – and is part of the government’s effort to strengthen the national health system ”. The Ugandan Ministry of Health made the area available and financed 20% of the works and management costs.

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