On June 15th, we had an amazing training with Engineering World Health Tanzania Summer Institute participants. In total, 23 people were trained on SolarSPELL for BMETs. These participants were from 8 different countries, including the US, Canada, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, South Korea, Yemen, and Uganda. These participants will be entering into 11 different hospitals in July to help fix medical equipment alongside a local biomedical technician.
The training was similar to the one given in Rwanda, but it was not quite the same without the wonderful help of Audrey and Adhel, the two Bridge2Rwanda interns who worked on the SolarSPELL-BMET library project from April-June.
A huge weight was placed on implementation, and the students had so many great ideas on challenges they may face and how to work through them. Everyone was very excited about having this tool to both use while they are in country and to introduce to their hospitals to give the local technicians more resources. The library contains material that will not just enable the technicians to fix equipment, but also learn new skills including how to make their own equipment out of local materials.
The students were excited to get their hands on the SPELLs and see how everything connects, then take them outside to test!
Each week during the first month of training, there is a practical day where the students go as a group to a hospital to fix equipment. This last week we went to Mt. Meru Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, where the SolarSPELL for BMETs was already put to good use!
