Hi Barry

 

Good to see you too. The story of East Timor is as follows:

 

I am here as an advisor (Medical Equipment Specialist) to the AusAID (80%) funded, World Bank managed project called HSSP-SP (Health Sector Strategic Plan – Support Project). My task is to set up a sustainable medical equipment management and maintenance service for the country. My TOR says ...

 

MAJOR OBJECTIVES

1.    The capacity of the Medical Equipment Department of the Ministry of Health is strengthened in the area of organisational setup, capacity building, policy development and implementation.

 

2.    Maintenance and repair activities are carried out for Health Posts, Community Health Centres, District Hospitals, Referral Hospitals and the National Hospital in Dili.

 

3.    A medical equipment maintenance strategy and a physical assets management plan is developed for the Ministry of Health and central, referral and facility level maintenance and repair (M&R) workshops are established in the central, regional, district and health facilities in the Country.

 

4.    An essential equipment list is developed for all levels of health facilities in the Country (with brief specification and list of spare parts required).

 

5.    The equipment inventory list is updated and an appropriate equipment database is established which includes a reporting system for medical equipment maintenance problems.

 

6.    Training modules for major equipment are developed and in-country training is conducted for MoH and facility level maintenance staff.

 

7.    Assistance is provided in the technical aspects of medical equipment procurement, such that specifications and bidding documents are produced to facilitate the evaluation of bids and the awarding of contracts.

 

8.    Carry out equipment inspection, testing and certification of acceptance for newly procured/donated equipment, spare parts and consumables.

 

9.    An orientation course for management staff and supervisors of the health facilities is conducted on the topics of equipment use, maintenance and repair need, inventory and reporting systems.

 

10.  Assistance is provided to the MoH and Facility In-Charge Officers in checking stored equipment and preparing a disposal list

 

11.  Operation and Maintenance Manuals are obtained, updated and maintained and training is conducted in their application

 

12.  A user training programme is developed and delivered to provide user training for all levels of health facility in equipment care, operation, safety and infection control.

And there are a whole of sub-clauses under that.

To achieve my task I have 6 BMETs who have been to Indonesia for training for 3 years to diploma level. They are located in the 6 referral hospitals around TL – one in each. I am recruiting 2 senior BMETs from this region who need to speak both English and Bahasa Indonesia or Tetun, as only one of the techs speaks English. We also have 3 young technicians who have just finished their TAFE training at Don Bosco College and are with us for 6 months for industrial experience. We may keep some of them at the end of their training and will probably get more in the future.

We are moving today into our new purpose-built workshop building. 200 sq m with electronic and mechanical workshops, office, storage area and meeting room – equal to anything we have in Australia. We have a 4WD vehicle for outreach (we had two but the Minister pinched one of them!) and full test equipment to do our job.

So we have the facility and smaller workshops around the country in the other hospitals, we have the hand tools and test equipment and will soon have the general workshop machinery, service aids and supplies we need as well as some common spare parts. My technician here is very good – better than most of the PNG or Pacific techs that I have worked with.  I think the work ethic is more Asian than Pacific and that’s a good thing. So all in all, I’m hopeful of a good outcome. But on the other hand, I tell people that I have to do here what 5 people failed to do over six years in PNG!

As for telemedicine, I think it could be very useful if we could somehow use the technology to do “tele-servicing” of equipment that we don’t have much experience with or which is highly specialised, such as ultrasound, X-ray, CT (yes we have a CT!), etc. If we could have a service engineer at the end of a video link and have a mobile camera that we could take pictures of screens, circuit boards, indicator panels, etc. to illustrate the symptoms of the fault and then get advice, shots of service manuals, direction as to where to go, etc. – that would make our task a lot easier. Currently we firstly have to find out who the service agent is for some of the brands that we haven’t heard of. Then we have to make contact and get a technician who is interested and start a process that takes many iterations.

So “tele-servicing” would be a great benefit.

As for the Pacific, we now have a technician in Vanuatu who is looking after Vanuatu and Solomon Islands for the next 15 months (18 month contract and 3 months gone). We also have technicians in Nauru/Tuvalu/Kiribati and Tonga/Samoa/Cook Is on the same deal. This is an AusAID funded project continuing on from the Pacific MEMP programme which I directed for 7 years. It is run under the PACTAM mechanism and administered by AVI. Unfortunately our Nauru/Tuvalu/Kiribati engineer has resigned and gone home after 3 drunk guys tried to rape her in the middle of the day in Tuvalu.

 

I hope this information is useful for you and look forward to talking more.

 

Best wishes

 

Bruce.

 

 

 

 

 

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