The Big Project-Volume 1

The construction industry is one of the main contributors of adverse climatic changes. While 40% of water crisis, 23% of air pollution and 50% of landfills are due to the construction sector, we still have time to reverse this.

Already prone to natural disasters like earthquakes, cyclones, heatwaves, floods, landslides and droughts, Pakistan’s apparatus to deal with them in Emergency scenarios is way too weak.

As per the result of WHO’s toolkit indicators used for evaluating health-system capacity for crisis management, Pakistan was rated as (≥ 66%) Acceptable, (36–65%) Partial or (≤ 35%) Inadequate.

When it comes to Health Care Technology, Medical Facilities, Vaccines Availability and storage, 61% of the indicators indicated that the preparedness lied between “partial availability” and “inadequate availability” during emergency needs.

This leads to severe health crisis, post disaster as can be seen from the condition of Afghan refugees living in camps, in Pakistan. Many suffer from Respiratory tract infections, cardiovascular diseases and contagious skin diseases due to unhealthy camp conditions.

The problems regarding Emergency Health Care facilities are almost similar worldwide but the availability of resources determine the post disaster, both man-made and natural, affects.

The need is to address the issues without over burdening the economies. Therefore, the proposals of Emergency Health Care Units, in this booklet, caters to the need while keeping in mind how limited the resources are. While we may not be able to avert the disasters, we certainly can contribute in ways that are humane, hygienic and sustainable so as to ensure that the survivors live in dignity and in healthier, cleaner environments. The proposals by students can be modified as per the need as most of the projects have modular structures, making it feasible for them to be adjusted as per the requirement.

Contributors: Ailiya Zehra Rizwan, Batool Jaffri, Farheen Aijaz, Minahil Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Nafeel Qureshi, Muhammad Osama Ahmed Baig, Syed Wajahat Mehdi

Booklet with designs and details can be accessed here.