Honduras: Medical Equipment Carcasses

Sunday, February 17

Ray Schmidt

I was down in the basement of the Escuela Hospital (pictured) when I came across a hallway filled with broken medical equipment. The halls were lined with infant warmers, incubators, anesthesia machines and other medical equipment. I know some of the equipment had just reached the end of its life and was being used for spare parts. But some of the equipment had been donated by well-intented organizations and individuals without being checked out before shipment.

In my ten years with Assist International I have seen many such hallways of equipment carcasses. Sometimes the equipment does not work in the first place; sometimes none of the accessories needed to use the equipment were provided; sometimes manuals were not provided and no one knew how to use the equipment. There are many reasons but the result is the same: disappointed hospitals that thought they would be getting equipment that would really help their patients but now just have a hallway filled with useless pieces of metal and plastic.

Assist International will only donate new or fully refurbished medical equipment and then we install it and warranty it for a full year—though we usually continue support long after that period. One of the great things about partnering with GE on medical projects is that the equipment that is donated is new. The equipment is then installed by GE technicians and training is provided by expert GE clinicians. Finally, all that equipment is guaranteed so if the hospital has any problems with it, we will fix it.