Aspects of Green Hospital Approaches with a Focus on Developing ...

Students‘ Seminar <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Hospital</strong> in Developing Countries Erlangen 2012
Air-Management in a surgery
Bastian Schöneberger
Central Institute <strong>of</strong> Healthcare Engineering
Friedrich-Alexander University <strong>of</strong> Erlangen-Nuremberg
Erlangen, Germany
b.schoeneberger@alles-relativ.de
Abstract – In this article there will be given an overview <strong>of</strong> a concept to manage the
stream and temperature <strong>of</strong> the air in surgeries. This concept divides temperature
and circulation <strong>of</strong> the air in two parts. The temperature will controlled via earth
pipes and stack effect. This idea will be used in older Persian buildings, but for
modern surgeries they must adapted. The circulation will be managed from an industrial
ventilation system, also in this part the temperature <strong>of</strong> the air will be used
to control the air-temperature. Both parts together use the DIN 1964-4 as guideline
for the air management in developing countries.
Keywords: Cooling <strong>of</strong> air, Circulation <strong>of</strong> air, stack effect, bernoulli effect, air filtering, DIN
1964-4, earth cooling
Introduction
For patients it´s important, that they get healthy out <strong>of</strong> the hospital. Inside the hospital,
the surgery is one <strong>of</strong> the main reasons to get sick. For this, there are two determining
factors. One are the direct contacts <strong>of</strong> surgery personal <strong>with</strong> the injury, the other are microbes
and bacteria in the air. For the first point, everybody can sanitize himself or the
surgical instruments. Not so easy is to get clean and fresh air in the room.
In hospitals in the industrial countries is this problem not so important, because everything
can build for a good air conditioning and stable energy supply is normal. In
developing countries is this not self-evident. In the opposite <strong>of</strong> the industrial countries,
developing countries are usually in very different climate zones (Fig. 1). For example
in Siberia it´s cold, tropic climate in Honduras and hot and dry in Africa. So no general
concept can be build for the whole world. But is it possible to get a guideline for airmanagement
in surgeries worldwide
The main reason to analyze this was to create an air conditioning concept for a surgery
in a bush hospital in northern Cameroun. These region is very dry and <strong>with</strong> an average
<strong>of</strong> 32,2°C hot. Up to now, open the door and the window was the only chance to get
fresh air in the surgery. But <strong>with</strong> this air microbes and bacteria get in touch <strong>with</strong> the
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