SPIE supports the design of a corona emergency hospital on the Hanover trade fair site

Hanover, 18 June 2020 – SPIE, the independent European leader in multi-technical services in the areas of energy and communications, received the contract to cooperate in the installation the infrastructure for the corona emergency hospital on the Hanover trade fair site. It is designed for approximately 500 corona patients who do not require intensive medical care. Over 80 doctors and more than 100 nurses would look after these patients. Hanover Medical University would assume responsibility for operating the treatment centre. It is intended to be used if all regional hospitals reach their capacity limits. A wide range of technical installations are required to retrofit the trade fair halls as an emergency hospital. 

Fitting out with state-of-the-art engineering

A SPIE team from Hanover supports the installation of the emergency hospital’s infrastructure. This above all places high requirements on the technical equipment and the related logistics. “It is a great challenge to transform an empty trade fair hall into a medical services centre with highly technical equipment – starting with the installation and connection of the telecommunication systems”, says Wolfram Ermlich, Project Manager of SPIE from the operational division Information & Communication Services. Apart from the hall for treating patients, additional halls were retrofitted – for instance for bed management, as a staff changing room, for the canteen, as a logistics area and warehouse and as a multi-storey car park.

 “Together with Deutsche Telekom we have fitted around 250 phones and 16 DECT antennas in the emergency healthcare facility, as well as 15 kilometres of copper cable and a kilometre of fibre-optic cable. In addition, the emergency hospital now has five individual Wi-Fi networks”, notes the Project Manager. This guarantees fast, secure and uninterrupted communication within the treatment centre.

In the field of electronical engineering, innumerable connections and outlets were provided to supply the single and multi-person cabins, as well as the administrative areas in side rooms and adjacent halls.  

Excellent partnership

A good teamwork of the various people in charge of the project – Hanover Medical University as operator, Deutsche Messe AG as owner of the halls and the German relief organisation Technische Hilfswerk as technical manager of the overall project – contributes to the success of this retrofitting: “The client praises the cooperation of all participants and is very satisfied with the implementation of this complex and ambitious project up to now”, reports Wolfram Ermlich.