Impact at Scale #2 | Maintaining Health at Scale

Impact at Scale #2 | Maintaining Health at Scale

Over the last year, we have seen the government make determined efforts to address gaps in the healthcare infrastructure. This edition of ‘Impact at Scale’ is a 2-minute read on the roadblocks to realising the impact of these efforts.

1 Question:

  • Manufacturing and procurement of lifesaving medical equipment have grown multi-fold (40x !) in response to COVID-19. Where are the skilled biomedical device repair and maintenance professionals to keep this infrastructure running?

2 Perspectives:

  • ~35% of lifesaving medical equipment is not functional for need of repair or maintenance at any given time. Lack of reliable sources of electricity and clean water, especially in the rural areas, means that they break down often.
  • Technologically advanced device infrastructure needs skill and expertise to be installed, operated, maintained, and repaired. Without trained personnel, investments made will not have the desired result – reducing avoidable death and suffering.

3 Factors:

  • To ensure the benefits of this upgraded infrastructure reaches our population, we need to train and deploy 150,000+ biomedical technicians and engineers.
  • To deliver healthcare equitably and increase our capacity to withstand future medical catastrophes at every level, this cadre needs to be built in every district and not concentrated in urban centres.
  • To learn from the COVID pandemic, factors that led to points of failure, such as incorrect usage of BiPAP ventilators, need to make their way into the curriculum.

If we want to improve the healthcare indicators of our country at scale, having a trained workforce to manage and maintain the infrastructure is essential. This is an opportunity to create many new, decent, and resilient livelihoods.

“One of the biggest myths in medicine is the idea that all we need are more medical breakthroughs, and then all of our problems will be solved.”

— Quyen Nguyen

I look forward to new perspectives and ideas from you – feedback is the breakfast of champions!

Until the next time,

Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan

P.S.: An interesting whitepaper on Vocational Education in Indian Schools, do take a look https://bit.ly/3DXek3x

pranay maurya

Secretary at Self-employed

2 年

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Revathi Kasturi

Entrepreneur - Human Capital Development, Independent Director VA tech Wabag -2012-2020, Board Of Management Manipal Jaipur from April 2022

3 年

Very good points. Yes we need Biomedical Technicians who are trained in operating and maintaining medical infrastructure. In the past I was exploring how to launch these courses and got stuck with multiple road blocks. The visibility on the specific job roles, the career paths, the opportunities for these folks all need to be publicised. Currently a few hospitals offer these courses. This must be expanded and some of these job roles introduced in polytechnics; in the Schools, also. This would widen the availability. Also there must be an audit of hospital infrastructure both private and governments (especially govt) to highlight these gaping gaps vis a vis lack of trained technicians and visibilty on the audit nos at the community and apex levels.

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Soumya Chandra

Available for ID reviews and Learning Content evaluation

3 年

Alongside the equitable development of delivery infrastructure, shouldn't Readiness be factored in? I am thinking about military grade readiness which comes through routine drill and practice - not loosing the steam, even in peace

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Indradeb Pal

Head Marketing and Sales at Enligence Technology Labs

3 年

This seems to be a noble effort. I need to understand more about it.

1. Three things have to go togther in service delivery: Infrastructure+ procurement of medium-life equipments; HR including capabillity building; consumables and recurring expenses. Any one is not there, you would be under-performing; 2 not there you would not be performing; none there and the question of result doesn't arise. As Tolstoy said - now popularly known as Anna Karenina syndrome - every happy marriage is happy in the same way; unhappy marriages are unhappy in their own ways. So in every individual case you would find some different element missing. 2. More important in the context of India: in a 2-day workshop on Public Health organised by the MoHFW and WHO held in Delhi in 2009, after listening to the speakers for 1 day, I said it is sad to see the entire day spent on 'medical' issues - doctrs, nurse, insurance, blah blah- and not public health. I was reminded of a doctor from Gujarat -- quoted in Down to Earth - who had put a sticker on his new car "Thanks to Chikangunya". We will continue to pollute water, land and air and then spend money on 'medical' matters; not spend money on 'public health' and keep water, land and air clean. Prevention is the least priority of governments. :-( :-( :-(

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