NorryCare is a proposal for healthcare centres throughout Southeast Asia. Centres that are functional, safe, secure, modular in construction, low cost, flexible and easily relocatable.

‘Norry’ comes from the French word for lorry. In Cambodia ‘Norry’ is an improvised rail vehicle, also known as a ‘bamboo train’. A bamboo train is a simple and affordable mode of transportation for locals. It is also used to transport goods and the occasional tourist. A Norry carriage consists of a bamboo platform sitting atop four wheels and a small engine. It runs on the vast existing and often abandoned network of one-metre gauge track that spans central and rural locations throughout Cambodia.

NorryCare uses the same concept for unit construction and facility mobility. Because the popular towns and rural areas are already networked rail networked NorryCare ‘carriages’ can be mobilized wherever and whenever the need arises. And that means in a number of previously unreachable locations. Rail yards, sidings, branch lines, marshalling and stabling areas, loading and unloading bays, line spurs and miles and miles of unused or abandoned track all represent suitable sites for service provision.

Further, the one-metre gauge train track used by NorryCare in Cambodia is the exact same size as that used in the neighbouring countries of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. In Poipet a service is now planned to run between the borders of Cambodia and Thailand. Such inter-state connectivity presents enormous opportunities for the provision of better healthcare throughout the region.

NorryCare: Modular components for different configurations

Client
Building Trust International in South East Asia
(Ideas Competition)

NorryCare: Using existing infrastructure and designed components to create mobile healthcare