Posted 27 мая 2020,, 13:41

Published 27 мая 2020,, 13:41

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:37

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:37

Two in one: a hospital bed-coffin combo was created in Colombia

Two in one: a hospital bed-coffin combo was created in Colombia

27 мая 2020, 13:41
In a difficult epidemic situation in South America, local designers have proposed a solution that can solve the problem of a shortage of hospital beds and a deficit of coffins in one fell swoop.

The Guardian announces the creativity of the Colombian company ABC Displays, which in peacetime was engaged in the production of advertising requisites from cardboard.

Irina Ziganshina

The company's designers came up with a hardboard hospital bed, which is also a coffin. The idea, it would seem, is wild, but in conditions of acute shortage of coffins and beds, it is not without pragmatism. The situation on the mainland remains so difficult that WHO at the end of last week said: "In a sense, South America has become the new epicenter of this disease." Brazil is second only to the United States in confirmed cases of infection and mortality.

In the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, until recently, people left the bodies of their loved ones right on the streets. In the latter case, only the intervention of the authorities, who provided people with cardboard coffins, defused the situation.

According to the founder of ABC Displays, Rodolfo Gomez: “We were closed for a couple of months, like everyone else, until we got this idea. When we saw what was happening in Ecuador, where corpses were lying on the streets, we realized that we had to prepare somehow. ”

Colombia has already moved to measures to gradually reduce isolation, which has been in place for two months, but the incidence curve is still growing. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is increasing by about 1000 people a day, more than 20,000 people are sick, and more than 700 have already died. With an almost 50 million population in the country, there are about 8,000 intensive care beds, and health workers complain about a lack of personal protective equipment.

Under these conditions, ABC Displays, according to the founder of the company, can produce up to 3000 beds per month. Each bunk can support up to 150 kg. The price of a bed is about $ 95. “Someone will say that we make death beds, but we are only trying to help during the crisis,” Gomez says. It is likely that the company's products will also be in demand in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile. And the company is planning to donate 10 beds to a hospital in Leticia, the Colombian city in the Amazon that was hit hard by the pandemic.

In the photo: ABC Displays, which had previously produced cardboard props for advertising, developed a bed that turns into a coffin.

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