Water treatment plant for the hospital campus of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital

The fact that drinking water flows from the tap at all times is standard for most of us in Europe and not a luxury. In the West African country of Gabon, however, the situation is different, as this report shows.

In the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, which is supported by Axonlab, drinking water has only been flowing from the tap on the entire campus since 2004. The fact that this is not a matter of course has just become apparent in recent days. At the time of writing, water is scarce or not available at all for the nearly 30,000 inhabitants of the district town of Lambaréné. The scarcity of water in the city is leading to long lines in front of the campus, as the population makes a pilgrimage to the hospital campus to fetch water for their daily needs. To prevent the water tanks on the Albert Schweitzer campus from being completely emptied, the tanks have even had to be temporarily closed.

But what is the story behind the drinking water system on campus and how does the water treatment work?

It all started in the early 2000s with donations from some Swiss companies:

Thanks to the financial support, the project could be started. The Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné is located on the Ogouué River, from which the water is drawn:

With the help of a pump, the still undrinkable, polluted river water is sucked in and pumped into a nearby "filter house":

This building is equipped with natural filter materials. First, the pumped river water runs over large stones for coarse filtration, then increasingly finer stones take over the filtration. In the next step, the coarsely filtered water runs over various basins with sand and carbon for further filtration:

The various materials used to filter the water are stored in a monitoring room. After a few years, the sand of the filter system has to be replaced - which is equivalent to about four truckloads of sand:

The water quality is measured and documented daily by campus employees. In addition, an external water inspector from Switzerland comes once a year to check the plant. At the end of the filtering process, a little chlorine is added to the water and the drinking water is ready. It has a somewhat brownish color, tastes slightly earthy, but is absolutely drinkable.

By means of a pump, the water is finally pumped up to the tanks, which provide the complete water supply for the entire campus. This means that one also showers here with drinking water, an absolute luxury in Africa.