Plumbing Africa January 2020 | Page 52

50 FEATURE Health: the cornerstone of civilisation By Eamonn Ryan Healthcare is without a doubt one of the cornerstones of modern society. While healthcare has seen dramatic evolution through the last couple of decades, the sector is currently faced with a conundrum in terms of changing technology, clinical modalities and the ever-increasing requirements to save on the excessive consumption of energy and other natural resources. It rapidly spread through wards, causing panic among doctors who had never witnessed anything like it. Urbani lead the race against time to contain the outbreak, but a month later was himself dead. His killer: SARS, the disease that 16 years ago arrived on the medical scene to take lives in cities as far flung as the Far East to Canada. Doctor Carlo Urbani was at his desk in 2003 at the World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Hanoi, Vietnam, when he got a desperate call from the city’s French Hospital. There, a Chinese-American businessman named Johnny Chen was critically ill with an aggressive flu-like disease. Mediclinic has started operating from brand-new, world-class medical facilities in Stellenbosch, purpose-built for the private hospital group by Atterbury and its partners to serve the growing demands to care for the Winelands community. www.plumbingafrica.co.za @plumbingonline @plumbingonline @PlumbingAfricaOnline January 2020 Volume 25 I Number 11