Castelló Field Hospital Spain

The Covid 19 pandemic has given the world many challenges, one of the main ones being how to provide care to those with the disease, when hospitals have been overwhelmed with cases.

Challenges Facing Sanitation

Many countries have established temporary hospitals, pictures of those in Central Park in New York were all over the news. A key issue when establishing temporary facilities of any kind is that of how to collect the wastewater safely and discharge it safely. Covid 19 has given sanitary workers and hospitals an enormous challenge of how to handle that risk when it has become known that the disease can be found in wastewater. See CDC advice

Flovac has been working with the Ministry of Health in Spain to develop a safe sewerage system. One that can handle any wastewater from temporary hospitals being set up to support hospital staff. Flovac has developed and supplied vacuum sewerage systems to three temporary hospitals. In Valencia, Castelló and Alicante in the south of Spain. The Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, is pushing the Ministry of Industry to roll out the facilities quickly as they see an increase in cases as they open the country up.

Deployable vacuum systems have been used for some time, by developers, the military and for special events such as the Olympics.You can read more about their applications here

Fast to Deploy

The main reason for their use is that they are easy to prebuild, test and deploy. The Ministry has found in

Spain  that all pipework can be laid flat on the ground or within small conduits to avoid being trip hazards. The single vacuum pump station which is the only place where power is required is small and can be placed out of the way. Small collection pits can handle the flows from the ablution blocks , wash down areas and showers.

The vacuum valve operates pneumatically once 20 liters (5 gallons) enters the sump. As vacuum pressure takes in wastewater and air no odours remain in the atmosphere. This also means that the virus cannot become airborne through the activation process.

Limit Risk of Contamination

As we have seen with Hospitals in Europe and in animal disease research centers, vacuum systems are used as there is no risk of cross contamination. If a pipe was to be broken, no contaminated wastewater would leak out and risk medical staff or members of the public. Read here about why vacuum sewers cannot leak.

Congratulations to the Flovac team in Spain for the speed and effort they have shown to help during this crisis.

If you would like more information about Flovac’s Temporary Hospital solution, please contact us at [email protected]