Privacy Tent for Haiti

Vetiver Plant Provides Breathable Wall For Comfort

This deployable unit was to be used to secure medicine and food prior to distribution.  The materials this tent was to be made from would include locally sourced bamboo and vetiver plants.  Jobs could then be created in cultivation and processing of these sustainable raw materials into fabric and the proper dimensions.  Paint would have would have provided direction with matching colors serving as an international language.  Metal corners fabricated in a more industrialised country would provide rigidity to winds and decrease the time required to assemble the structure.  The deployment of this structure would primarily be in response to natural disasters where food and light medical attention are critically needed.   Regular usage of this package could benefit those living in more isolated area's where aid is more scarce.  These units are meant to be staffed by the people of Haiti allowing them to provide for themselves and provide for their own relief.   This would be an empowering element to the local people and promote education through increased communication.

Basic Instruction on Assembly 

During the development of this project I realized that sustainable aid to Haiti can best be accomplished by educating and empowering the local people.  Promoting basic ideas of sanitation and reinforcing those ideas with proper leadership could do much for the people of Haiti. Due to the actions of irresponsible aid workers new and deadly viruses have been introduced to Haiti.  If local peoples had been given an education on the basic kinds of care that can be sustainable provided in Haiti and then dispatched to carry out that care new foreign disease might not be introduced.

Key elements of a hospital design should include education, local material to stimulate the economy, and geographic awareness to provide patients with comfort. 

detachApack

DetachApack is a mobile medical unit designed for quick and easy setup, along with minimal use of materials and supplies. The pack would include one day’s worth of supplies, medical and pharmaceutical, for 8 medical personal. Each pack also includes one fold out lounge; this would accommodate a patient and a doctor at each station. Supplies would be organized within the pack by dividers, as well as zip off sections to separate the medical from the pharmaceutical supplies. The mobile medical unit would serve approximately 250 Haitians over a four day period with a set of 8 backpacks per day.The detachApack being used by a medical personnel.

Though the pack functioned as was planned there were a couple lessons learned, as well as a few minor tweaks that would make the pack even more functional. The first major lessoned learned from the nurses, would be to make sure there is a good separation between the pharmacy and the doctor and nurses. This would help with crowd control and security of both the medical and pharmaceutical supplies.  The original intent of the detachApack was for the medical and pharmaceutical supplies to be separate from one another in setup, but more specific instructions would improve upon this idea.The fold out lounge chair that could be used for patient examinations.

A functional issue that could be designed better is the fold out lounge chair. Though the idea was beneficial and useful, the design was too low to the ground. This would cause for the doctor to be bent over most of the day. The design could be easily fixed to accommodate a system of telescoping legs for adjustable height as well as the possibility of uneven terrain at the site.

The ends of each pack can be zipped off to be distributed to separate areas of the clinic setup.

 A final critique of the project was the labeling system, or lack thereof. Other than making the zip off sections different colors there was no indication of what was included within the pack. To assist in the ease of setup, a clear indication on each bag of what was inside, such as a list of supplies or a number to indicate what day the bag was to be used for, would decrease a possible mix-ups of bags or the nurses not being able to find a certain medicine quickly. Each bag would also need to be slightly modified to accommodate a space to carry water, as well as an individual lunch for each medical personnel per day.

detachApack presentation pdf