If it looks like a kitchen…

Clinic lab that used to be a kitchen in a clinic that used to be a helicopter base. (Dili, TL, 2004)

I’ve been fixing medical equipment in unusual places for 20 years. This (image) is where I started, volunteering in a non-profit clinic in Dili, East Timor, in 2004. Before I arrived, I was advised, “You will probably learn a lot and help a little.” I arrived with a screwdriver and a $20 multimeter, began with an audit of their various medical device assets, and ended up trying to fix small SpO2 devices, blood-pressure cuffs and dental chairs. I saw kwashiorkor, TB, and hydrocephalus. I caught malaria and was treated with Artemesinin.

There was, of course, no biomeds, no technical support and no workshop. I borrowed space in their lab, which looked like an old kitchen, and sat beside the girls who were testing slides for malaria and TB. Eventually people asked me to fix anything that could be fixed, including a washing machine, photocopier, a kerosene-powered vaccine fridge and a diesel generator.

There was a Dengue outbreak, and suddenly everyone needed working blood-pressure cuffs in order to do a tourniquet test. Somehow I now had more work than I could usefully do.