05/26/2009
In developing countries, essential biomedical equipment often goes unrepaired resulting in a lack of treatment, misdiagnosis, and even death. Without skilled technicians and the proper test and repair tools, this condition remains a major obstacle to providing quality healthcare and saving lives.
In 2007, with support from ExxonMobil, Medisend founded the first and only Biomedical Repair Training Program tailored to train BMET technicians for developing country hospitals. Graduates return to their countries with the skills to install, maintain and repair vital biomedical equipment. Each graduate’s hospital receives a Mobile Biomedical Equipment Test and Repair Kit™, intended for their hospital and in clinics in surrounding areas. Medisend’s Biomedical Department developed and produced the kits to complement its Biomedical Repair Training Program.
Medisend has shipped nineteen of the life-saving Mobile Biomedical Equipment Test and Repair Kits™ to hospitals in Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Nigeria, and soon to Chad, thanks to ExxonMobil. Each of the kits contains over 4,000 laboratory repair tools, supply items, and state-of-the-art test and calibration devices. Customized to the country’s electrical specifications, the kit is the foundation for a modern biomedical repair laboratory and can repair and maintain approximately eighty percent of all basic biomedical equipment used in a developing hospital system.
Medisend Biomedical has developed six additional test and repair kits, each designed to support basic and advanced biomedical specialties in the hospital environment. The new kits will be available for distribution in early 2010, to coincide with the opening of Medisend’s professional level Advanced Training Programs.
In addition to the ExxonMobil technician and kit sponsorships, MediSend has also trained technicians and provided kits to the JFK and Zoe-Geh Hospitals in Liberia, the Biamba Marie (Dikembe) Mutombo Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo and St. Stevens Hospital in India.