IHFI Begins Wiring Rehab at HUEH
Under USAID's IHFI project, HUEH hospital in Port-au-Prince will undergo wiring upgrades for critical facilities such as the surgery, emergency and maternity wards, as well as an overhaul of its long-dormant power plant.
Hôpital de l’Université d’Etat d’Haïti (State University Hospital of Haiti), or HUEH, is one of Haiti's largest and most well-established hospitals. Located in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, HUEH has played a central role in serving the city's population, especially since the January 2010 earthquake, from which the facility itself is still recovering. Now, the Improving Health Facility Infrastructure (IHFI) project, funded by USAID and administered by Tetra Tech Inc., is tackling a number of lingering problems at the hospital. With a focus on improving energy supply at health facilities across the country, the IHFI project has been active in updating energy infrastructure and training local technicians in the management of health energy systems. At HUEH, the IHFI project is undertaking a series of major upgrades to electrical distribution systems around the hospital campus.
The IHFI team has worked closely with Haiti's Ministry of Public Health and Population and USAID/Haiti to identify critical reconstruction needs for the hospital while also anticipating the construction of a new ambulatory care facility on campus. IHFI's specific interventions at HUEH have been selected to compliment other reconstruction efforts being undertaken by the Haitian government and international donors. Specifically, IHFI is overhauling the electrical wiring in the hospital's emergency, surgical and maternity wards, as well as rehabilitating the campus's medium voltage power distribution system and 800 kW diesel power plant, which has been out of operation for over two years.
The overhaul process begins with energy assessments of the various facilities, including the creation of wiring diagrams, an estimation of electrical loads and an examination of the wiring conditions. These assessments are performed by the IHFI team in Haiti and then reviewed with the hospital management team before being used to specify the electrical work necessary to bring the buildings up to code. A number of these assessments have been completed or are currently in progress, look for updates on this project as the IHFI team moves into the next phase of implementation.