From Mozambique, Dhairya Pujara writing in Makeshift:
In parallel to a need for more appropriate hands-on education increased emphasis should made in the development and production of home grown equipment. From kits to open source hardware solutions and more. Furthermore encouraging a local culture of repair and innovation within the field of medical devices will go a long way in solving these endemic problems, along with understanding how other countries like India handle these issues.
There’s a myth that more equipment will improve healthcare in rural areas. But there’s no lack of medical equipment here—in fact quite the opposite. Hospitals often have hundreds of thousands of dollars of donated technology, sitting unused.More here
Image courtesy of Makeshift
Sometimes the equipment is abandoned due to a lack of critical components. An ultrasound has no gel. ECG monitors are missing electrodes to attach them to patients. There are digital blood pressure modules, but the cuffs leak. Or the electrical cord doesn’t match Mozambique’s wall sockets.
The underlying problem is a lack of training. Even if the equipment is operational, the staff hasn’t been taught how to use the devices or what benefits they can provide. The monitoring equipment in the hospital, for example, can sound alarms when patients’ vitals go out of acceptable range, enabling nurses to attend to many beds at once. Unaware of this functionality, nurses stand next to patients and monitor them manually: an inefficient use of resources in a country with three doctors for every 100,000 people.
In some cases, the education system has fallen short completely, and the staff is missing knowledge of basic medical concepts. One team of nurses had been told that a healthy patient’s blood pressure should be 160/100, a reading high enough to warrant putting a patient on blood pressure medication. Before I began repairing or installing equipment in this hospital, I had to begin in the classroom.
In parallel to a need for more appropriate hands-on education increased emphasis should made in the development and production of home grown equipment. From kits to open source hardware solutions and more. Furthermore encouraging a local culture of repair and innovation within the field of medical devices will go a long way in solving these endemic problems, along with understanding how other countries like India handle these issues.