Keeping the Machines Humming

HEISBH has been awarded a grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to fund the “Reparation Pou Amelyore Ekipman Medikal (REPARE)” program for biomedical equipment management. Under this three-year Cooperative Agreement, HEI/SBH will build a replicable model for addressing biomedical equipment management, based at SBH in Fond des Blancs, Haiti. This model will be delivered through a training program for local technicians in partnership with SBH’s full-time Biomedical Equipment Technician and under a public-private partnership with the GE Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

In Haiti, the consequences of non-functioning and poorly maintained medical equipment can have devastating consequences for patients seeking life-saving health services. The REPARE program will strengthen biomedical equipment management by building on private/public partnerships, as well as a regional partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health and Partners In Health/Zanmi Lasante. Under the REPARE project, a training program is in place for biomedical technicians at SBH and the University Teaching Hospital of Mirebalais, which will be used as a replicable model for expanding training opportunities to additional facilities in Haiti.

The U.S. Agency for International Development administers the U.S. foreign assistance program providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 80 countries worldwide.

To learn more about Tom Monaghan, SBH’s Biomedical Engineering Technician and the director of this program, click here.

Andy Saint-Louis, SBH’s first Biomedical Engineering Technician trainee under the REPARE program, has this to say about what learning these new skills means to him and his community: