With the rural and local community finding it hard to reach hospitals in the cities for screening and treating the deadly virus, the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in collaboration with ‘Modulus Housing’ a start-up incubated by IIT Madras, has come up with Portable hospitals in these suburban localities.
The portable hospitals that could be installed in any locality will help to detect, manage and treat COVID-19 patients in local communities. Scientists from SCTIMST Subhash NN and Muraleedharan CV along with Modulus Housing Chief Executive Officer Shreeram Ravichandran developed the portable microstructure named “MediCAB”. This is a modular, portable, durable, easy to set up and can be customised as per the requirements of the customer.
MediCAB is foldable and is composed of four zones – a doctor’s room, an isolation room, a medical room/ward, and a twin-bed ICU, maintained at negative pressure. It can be erected in just two hours with the help of four persons. The cabins in the MediCAB are tightly sealed and are dust-proof. It has in-built electricals, which are just plug-n-play. MediCAB can also withstand harsh weather and heavy rains as well.
It comes equipped with a prefabrication modular technology and a telescopic frame that allows the model to be shrunk to 1/5th of its original size, which makes it convenient for storage and transportation. These portable units come in three sizes – 200, 400, and 800 sqft. The units can be installed at the car parking or at the terrace of the hospital according to the needs or availability of space at the facility.
As of now, a 30 bedded hospital at a cost of 34 lakhs (INR) at Chengalpet, Chennai at SugaHhealthcorp Private Corporation, and another 12 bedded hospital in Waynad, Kerala at a cost of Rs 16 Lakh at Primary Health Care, Varadoor- Govt. Organisation have been successfully installed as four-zone hospitals.
The team of Modulus Housing says that it is working on a dual design where these mobile hospitals can be rapidly launched as Covid-19 isolation wards.
