`Making medical devices accessible to save life

Medical devices are an integral part of modern medicine and used in every spectrum of medical science from diagnosis to treatment, from prevention to rehabilitation. Whether they are simple or sophisticated, these devices have been saving lives of millions of people around the world. On the other hand, there are millions more who are dying without any access to even the most essential device. Most of these people could have been survived and thrived with access to safe and lifesaving devices.
The challenges to make medical devices accessible are critical and colossal, especially for a resource limited country like Bangladesh. Medical devices are not available everywhere. And in many parts, where it is available, it is not accessible due to lack of money for maintenance, lack of trained manpower to use and manage it and due to poor procurement system.
There are several news reports from Bangladesh that showed government hospitals purchased many sophisticated and expensive machine that remained idle for long years, many machines were standing for a simple tool like a spare part. There are corruption reported behind many procurement, there are machines procured in many semi-urban and rural government health settings that are still wrapped in the box and unutilised at all due to lack of simple training to handle the equipment or lack of staff to run it. There are financial challenges for a developing country like Bangladesh to maintain such sophisticated machineries.
Many times, healthcare professionals are inadequately trained to handle the device and start using it. Lack of proper training leads to more harm than good to patients. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that a staggering 1.3 million deaths occur each year around the globe due to unsafe injection.
There are even challenges in the way devices are designed. Many devices are intended for wealthier markets that do not fit in developing country’s settings.  Like many device need continuous power supply that is a challenge for a country like Bangladesh. Many cheap, stripped down devices are used in developing country as substitute  that often do not lasts for long due to lack of capacity to survive in extreme conditions like heat, dust and unreliable power.
In order to address these challenges experts identified the need of context-specific devices, increase manpower and training to handle devices, good procurement practice and allocation of fair share in budget for maintenance of machine.
Medical devices from a simple bandage to a surgical robot have made a difference to millions. The challenges is now to make sure everyone, no matter where they live should have the access to essential safe and life-saving medical devices and to people who know how to use them. Everyone (manufactures, medical community and government) should work together to meet these challenges with the right design to right decision. The time to act is now.

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