Hi all,
I am a clinical engineer who works in the South Pacific region - for those who don't know that's a region immediately to the east of Australia and above New Zealand extending to the Cook islands and North to the equator.
We have several countries in the region - all are basically categorized as developing or emerging and we have struggles obtaining budgets for the medical equipment. We can get large items through aid monies but it does not cover the everyday more normal items (what sparked this topic was a discussion about MS-16 and MS-24 syringe drivers). As is the case in probably all the developing world, every day we see people succumbing to what are routine treatable conditions in the developed world.
In Tonga we have an arrangement with a private hospital in Australia that sends us a lot of used but good equipment and I have been distributing this throughout the region as I have a pretty good knowledge of where we are and the areas of need.
The group the hospital belongs to have approached me about becoming a distribution agent, I suppose you would call it, for donations from all nine hospitals in their group to send to me distribute around the Pacific according to need - if your hospitals have particularly small items such as syringe drivers etc and they would perhaps like to place them where they would be put to lifesaving use I'd love to hear from you - I can promise that this equipment would be donated where it can do most good - this is an aid project and I will be happy to share where the equipment has gone - We have fourteen countries in the Pacific and countless hospitals and health centers within those countries - to give you an example of how basic the need, two weeks ago I spoke at a regional health officers conference in one country regarding introducing oxygen therapy - I asked for a show of hands as to who had access to pulse oximeters and of 18 regional health officers only two, who were hospital based, did. This would be the same in all Pacific countries, so please, if you have read this far and you think you could help send me a message - for electrical its worth mentioning that most of these countries run from 240v 50hz so 110v equipment is not suitable unless it has a switched mode power supply and we cannot afford to buy replacement items - so please if its not complete its no use to us. Thanks for reading this rather long post Andy
