Engineering World Health began the BMET training program in late 2009 to provide a training course for 45 biomedical equipment technicians in Rwanda. The program is funded by the GE Foundation with the goal of providing enough trained technicians to service every hospital in Rwanda within three years.  In the second year, the program will reach out to train technicians in Francophone countries surrounding Rwanda.

Rwanda has been experiencing a remarkable recovery from a devastating civil war that took place in the 1990s. However, the nation still suffers from a severe lack of trained personnel in the health care professions. Much of the medical equipment in Rwandan hospitals is now non-functional, due in large part to a lack of trained technicians to maintain and repair it.  As a result, the health system loses the opportunity to treat and diagnose patients, exacerbating the country’s difficulties with primary health care and diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB.  This BMET Training Program is the first of its kind, as there has previously been no technician training program in Rwanda.

The GE Foundation has generously donated new medical equipment to Rwanda, in addition to numerous other developing countries in Africa.  A donation of the same equipment will supplement the training program conducted by EWH.  The equipment will be an educational aid for the students in the program.  The investment in training skilled technicians will ensure that the equipment delivered by the GE Foundation and most other medical equipment in Rwanda can be properly maintained and remain serviceable for many years into the future.

The EWH BMET program is managed by EWH Biomedical Engineering Technician Coordinator, Billy Teninty.  Teninty has 28 years of experience training technicians in developing countries in the maintenance and repair of medical equipment.  He has first-hand experience training nationals from Albania, Cameroon, Dem. Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kosovo, Liberia, Madagascar, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe.  Teninty’s training programs have achieved a remarkable retention rate: over 80% of the technicians he has trained have remained in their home country to continue working in their hospitals.

The basis for the training will be a new curriculum developed by undergraduates at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. Allison Keane (2009 BME) did the basic research, analyzing reports from several thousand pieces of broken medical equipment and spending a summer in Africa with the EWH-Duke Summer Institute in 2008. Keane determined why medical equipment that works in the US fails when it arrives in the developing world. Using that information Jenna Maloka (2009 BME) and Keane determined what knowledge one would need to return the equipment to service in a resource-poor setting. Then, Mhoire and Kathleen Murphy (2009 BME) and Marian Dickinson (2010 BME) converted that knowledge into a curriculum that could be taught to secondary school graduates.

Training of hospital technicians will begin in Spring, 2010.  The training will take place in Kigali, Rwanda.