Planning for the comprehensive refurbishment of the electrical and IT systems in Tanzania began back in 2019. St. Walburg`s Hospital in Tanzania. The public power supply in the bush hospital in Nyangao in the south-east of the country is unstable, with prolonged outages occurring time and again. A great danger for all patients and staff. Without electricity, there is no light, no ventilators, no anaesthetic machines, which means there are always deaths that don't have to happen.

Thanks to the generous support of the Munich-based technology group Rohde & Schwarz, the hospital's entire power supply can be reinstalled. A mammoth project, which we expected to take around a year to complete. The electricity in the rural hospital in the south-east of the country should have been flowing without outages long ago. Unfortunately, Covid-19 and the associated travel restrictions intervened, meaning that apart from procuring materials and shipping a container, no activities could take place until summer 2021.

In September, the first large-scale operation with 4 German engineers and technicians was able to begin. Together with Tanzanian helpers, several kilometers of power cables were laid. A new main power distributor was also installed. In addition, the entire IT network is fully operational and the WIFI network is also up and running.

The first milestone in the refurbishment has been reached. In two further operations, the batteries for buffering power failures will now be connected and a hospital management system installed. The treatment of patients in the St. Walburg`s Hospital will be significantly safer and of better quality.