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Funded by the Czech Republic Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), work on the construction of a mortuary within the premises of a hospital in Pul-i-Alam, capital of central Logar province, was underway, the team said on Thursday. The facility was being built by the team upon the request of the local branch of the Ministry of Health, the PRT said in a statement.
”The hospital is the biggest facility in the province, providing treatment to most serious injuries suffered in road accidents or as a result of Taliban attacks. Also, the deceased are brought here. The point here, however, is that the hospital is not equipped for the deposition of dead corpses at all,“ Ahmatullah Nalam, Director of the Pul-i-Alam- based hospital, explained.
He said the unsatisfactory conditions were posing both hygiene and health risks. ”At present, cadavers are deposited behind the hospital wall until the families collect them. They are placed on the glowing sun, adrift on dogs. Not very decent, is that.”
The mortuary, the erection of which has just started, will comprise a special construction designed in a way to allow for the space intended for the deposition of cadavers to undergo a process of natural cooling.
”One of the options was to construct a regular building and install a power generator plus an air-conditioning system to cool the facility. The option would, however, dramatically rise the costs going into the hospital's operation due to the diesel needed for the generator, “said Klára Janotová, a civil engineer from the PRT´s civilian section, acting as manager of the mortuary project.
”That is why the building is designed in a way allowing for self-cooling, using the energy coming from a solar chimney. In its simplest form, the role of a solar chimney is played by a freshly painted shaft. Within the area of the chimney, the air gets heated and – under the rule of the physical law stating that hot air tends to run high – the air surrounding the shaft is soaked into underground collectors and getting cool. As a result an ascending stream of air emerges, cooling down the mortuary interior,“ the construction engineer clarifies.
“The advantage of the system lies in that is capable of maintaining a low temperature even over hot Afghan summers. Moreover, in terms of Afghan personnel, the said cooling system basically is maintenance free,” Janotová added.
Once the said mode of cooling the premises is fully tested within the present pilot project, it will moreover be used by the Czech PRT in additional hospitals run in the province.
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