Biomedical engineers from different universities in the country have been advised to demand an innovation and incubation centre to support them in beginning local manufacturing of medical equipment.
Speaking at the third Uganda National Biomedical Engineering Conference yesterday at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Mr Tadeo Byabagambi, the Assistant Commissioner of Biomedical Engineering Services at the Ministry of Health, said with a lot of innovation of equipment and devices that is currently going on in the country, there is need to create an incubation centre where the ideas can be incubated and supported to spur local manufacturing of medical equipment.
‘There is a lot of innovation in equipment and devices that are needed for treatment and diagnosis, but they are not together in one area. We need to come up with a national medical equipment innovation and incubation centre to ensure that all our medical equipment is manufactured here,’ he said.
He further explained that when the equipment is manufactured locally, it is affordable and even if it breaks down, the spares can be obtained cheaply, and the local manufacturers can be supported to start the manufacturing instead of importing them all the time.
Pulling resources
Asked why they think they can now manufacture medical equipment locally, Dr Robert Ssekitoleko the head of biomedical engineering at the Makerere University School of Public Health, said when they started the Uganda Biomedical Engineering Conference in 2018, the idea was to bring together all the biomedical people working in hospitals to discuss issues affecting them.
He added that they have registered more than 100 prototypes of equipment and devices needed in the medical sector that are failing to make it to the market because of many issues.
‘We know that we share similar problems. We have students who have developed a machine for warming babies using a simple jerry can, we have a machine to support women with pre-eclampsia, we have developed over 100 prototypes that have complicated issues starting from ownership, property rights,’ he said.
He added that getting approval for producing medical devices and equipment is also a expensive and hard process, because it requires extensive research and trials, which require the engineers to pool resources together.
Oxygen tank
Asked what kind of support they are giving the local manufacturers, Dr Martha Mulera, the head of biomedical programme at ShiShi, a company which manufactures equipment, said they do contractual manufacturing.
She said so far, they have been able to get permission to manufacture the laparoscopy keyhole surgery device which has finished clinical trials. They are also going into manufacturing an oxygen storage tank.