Sepura and GEG support emergency hospital in Italy with critical communications solution

Sepura’s Italian partner GEG has donated vital critical communications equipment to an emergency hospital in Italy, to aid the country’s medical support during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The rapidly deployed Fiera di Bergamo hospital is situated in an event venue in Bergamo, the worst affected region in Italy and is managed by staff from a nearby permanent hospital. The facility was constructed in just a week, supported by private and corporate donations and volunteer support from the region. It comprises 142 beds including over 70 intensive care beds and access points for both ambulances and helicopters.

The rapidly deployed Fiera di Bergamo hospital is situated in an event venue in Bergamo, the worst affected region in Italy and is managed by staff from a nearby permanent hospital. The facility was constructed in just a week, supported by private and corporate donations and volunteer support from the region. It comprises 142 beds including over 70 intensive care beds and access points for both ambulances and helicopters.

To ensure that all medical staff, logistic support and volunteers can communicate effectively, GEG have donated a complete critical communications system to the site, comprising of 50 Sepura SC21 TETRA radios, programming software and a TETRA base station from DAMM to provide the local network. The radios have been provided with individual battery chargers and belt clips to reduce the amount of contact with hands and to reduce the risk of cross-contamination. For the control room, GEG has provided a desk-mounted SRG3900, multiple charging units and desktop programming devices to ensure that the radios are correctly set up for emergency use.

After performing a full site inspection and installing the base station, GEG also delivered training to all radio fleet administration staff on basic radio use, including switching between talk groups and making full-duplex calls.

Ian Gotti, Sales Area Manager for GEG said: “Communication is particularly important in this environment, as many of the key workers in this highly pressured environment are not used to working together; on-site there are members of both the Italian and Russian armies, volunteers from international emergency response and civil protection organisations, nurses and medical staff from all across Italy and many maintenance staff across the site covering many functions.”