Good first step

April 28, 2009
Location: Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda

Today, we finished cleaning out the future clinical engineering workspace for the technicians at Mulago Hospital.

The picture to the left was the room before we started cleaning. We started an equipment triage and assessed what was worth saving. Many of the items had no hope of ever being repaired for use. The problem was that some of these things were so old that the company that originally manufactured them were either no longer in business or no longer supporting the device. All those items - immediately in the "Return to Main Stores" pile, which grew steadily throughout the day. Some items required proprietary disposables that there would be no hope of getting replenishing supplies for, as Mulago Hospital was not ready to import large quantities of disposable medical supplies. So on to the pile they went... Ancient machines - Gone!

Sabo Rashid, the environmental services guy (who really takes pride in his work), really did a good job! Here is the "After" photo of the same room after Rashid (pictured below) sweeped and mopped the room. We then put back the equipment that survived the scruitiny. Approximately 70% (by volume) of the equipment went to the trash bin. Anesthesia carts from the sixties and the seventies - gone!

Next, we needed to clear out the actual lab space next door where the technician benches will be located. We are hoping to put in three benches.





April 29, 2009
Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda

Somewhere near Operating Theater 4, there is a door marked "Maintenance." This is the new home of Mulago Hospital Clinical Engineering deptartment. Here is the room before we got there:

The stack of papers to the right included OR records (they were pretty articulate and thorough) back to 1994. All record keeping is still done on carbon copy paper. Please help! We need to get them a better way to keep track of expenses and OR activities.

As before, most of these equipment went to the stores. Notice the ZEISS microscopes... I think they have three total. Very nice units.




Once again, Rashid did his magic and voila!

Cleanliness! All is well. Now to fill this space with three technician's benches, fully stocked. We shall see how this goes in the coming days. We finished the day by putting together a pediatric ventilator using some spare parts. This was a good day.

Peace Out,
Keita Ikeda, PhD.