Assayta District Hospital, Ethiopia: Maintenance, Rehabilitation and Building in Extreme Conditions

Abstract

The Assayta health center, Ethiopia, has to be expanded and transformed to become the District Hospital. In this process, local authorities and a Spanish NGO are working together with the collaboration of some University researchers. The transformation process is happening at different stages: the first scope are the maintenance of existing buildings which show some damage, second, the rehabilitation of old abandoned barracks that will assume in the future new roles as medical visits, and finally the construction of surgery and motherhood buildings. All this intervention is being carried out by local staff with low qualifications, suffering high weather temperatures around 50 °C and located in an isolated region 10 h drive from the Capital City where the supplies are available. This paper explains how the experience was developed from the University researchers view, the conclusions reached and their possible transfer to the building scientific society.