Hospitals stuck with unutilised equipment due to lack of disposal facility

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT  | Health facilities in the country are stuck with obsolete equipment due to lack of a hospital equipment disposal facility.

This came up during a conference of biomedical engineers held in Kampala on Thursday.

The biomedical engineers noted that they are currently challenged on how to get rid of medical equipment they no longer need.

Dr. Johnes Obungoloch, a Biomedical engineer and deputy dean Faculty of Applied Science and Technology at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), said the Atomic Energy Council in the Energy Ministry can’t fulfill its mandate of dealing with radioactive devices such as X ray and CT equipment.

He noted that even the old radiotherapy machine at the Uganda Cancer Institute is still in the bunker at the Radiotherapy department in Mulago because there is nowhere to take it.

The bioengineers also noted that most of the medical equipment in the country is donated and becomes defective in a very short time because of lack of property maintenance resulting from the absence of qualified people to operate it.

Just like any other machinery, the bio-engineers said the equipment need to be serviced whether in use or not.

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