09 July 2007
Panama’s Health Services Aided by U.S. Biomedical Technicians
Technicians ensure medical equipment is in working order for doctors, nurses
Colón, Panama – Even the most highly trained surgeon is only as good as his sterilizer. Everyone recognizes the important role of doctors and nurses to the health care profession, but the crucial behind-the-scenes work of biomedical technicians often goes unnoticed.
The mission of the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort on its Latin American and Caribbean tour is not only to provide humanitarian assistance to underprivileged populations but also to ensure that local health care professionals have the tools they need to continue providing quality medical service after the ship moves on.
This is the central mission of Comfort’s 12 biomedical technicians. According to biomedical technology team member Jacob Brown, the ship’s technicians are uniquely qualified to help developing countries repair and maintain their biomedical equipment. They are all graduates of the U.S. military’s biomedical technician training program, widely recognized in the field as one of the world’s premier training programs.
Brown told USINFO July 8 that the military provides students with intensive, hands-on training in repairing a wide variety of equipment. Consequently, its technicians are highly skilled at troubleshooting problems with unfamiliar machines.
The head of Panama’s biomedical technicians’ office, Jesús Tapia, appreciated this depth of skill. “We learned a number of techniques from their experience in repairing equipment,” he said.
The Comfort’s crew worked with a dozen local technicians during their visit to Amador Guerrero Hospital in Colón, Panama, to repair sterilizers, intravenous pumps, defibrillators, water distillers and centrifuges. Brown said his team works alongside local technicians throughout the process so they will learn how to maintain and repair their equipment in the future. “Whatever we do, they’re there,” he said.
Brown said his team also learned from the Panamanian technicians about dealing with some unfamiliar pieces of equipment. He said the Panamanians were the most highly skilled technicians he has dealt with in the developing world. Brown attributed that skill to the high educational standards for biomedical technicians in Panama. He said most of them have degrees in mechanical or electronic engineering.
This has not been the case in other countries, where equipment maintenance and repair is often left to plumbers and people with limited electronics training, he said.
One of the greatest challenges in the developing world is that the local hospitals lack manuals for their equipment, Brown said. In some cases, the equipment was donated without manuals. In others, the manufacturers provided no manual, assuming that the purchaser would buy maintenance and repair contracts. Such arrangements would be expensive and logistically difficult to manage from a country other than that in which the equipment originated, however.
Consequently, equipment often is retired simply because the hospital does not know how to carry out the simplest maintenance and repairs. Brown said one hospital he visited had a broken dialysis machine and a part to fix it. Because no one knew how to install the part, the machine sat in the closet. Comfort biomedical technician Anthony Foht said his team can overcome such problems. If a doctor can tell him what a machine is supposed to do, he can troubleshoot without a manual and will figure out how to make it work, he said.
Another common problem in developing countries is a lack of spare parts. Panamanian technician Olga Romero explained, “We don’t have parts, so we have to use parts from other machines.” Brown said the ship is carrying a large supply of spare parts and repair tools that allows his team to address almost any problem. He said the ship also will leave some parts behind at each stop to ensure that the local technicians can maintain their equipment.
The Comfort is on a four-month tour of 12 Latin American and the Caribbean nations to provide primary health services and minor surgery to local populations and to strengthen the local health care community.
“I’ve gotten a whole lot out of this experience,” Brown said. “It’s a lot of work, but when you come home, it feels good. It feels like you’ve actually contributed to the mission.”
For more information on U.S. efforts to combat disease internationally, see Health.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
