This account of the University of Portland's third repair trip to Haiti is written by: Noah Webster, President of University of Portland’s Biomedical Engineering club, and an incoming junior studying mechanical engineering and chemistry.

When I first heard about this opportunity of service through the biomedical engineering club at University of Portland, I knew little of their two prior biomedical repair trips to Haiti in 2014 and 2015. These were organized by a Portland-based nonprofit, Biomedical Engineering Technology Aid Intl (BETA Intl), in conjunction with Project Medishare’s Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Funding was provided through University of Portland engineering dept. This year’s team was one of the most interdisciplinary: it included our chaperone, Jared Rees, a faculty technician who specializes in electrical engineering; Emily Bliven, who just received her Master’s degree in our new Biomedical Engineering graduate program; Kevin Jones, an electrical engineering and chemistry student; Alex Rouhier, who is studying mechanical engineering; and Mackenzie Brandon, who studies biology. Jared, along with BETA’s CEO, Dan Schuster, had been on both prior trips, while our team captain, Emily, was a veteran of the 2015 trip. Our diverse knowledge base was broad enough that with the proper training beforehand, we were confident in our ability to diagnose and fix almost any medical equipment.

Dan mentored our club through the trip planning stages, and suggested we each pick and area of equipment expertise to achieve maximum team leverage. Emily went on the service trip last year and was able to give a detailed description of her experience along with pictures outlining her housing situation and what we should expect to encounter so we could pack our bags accordingly.

In the final months leading up to our departure date, we met as a group multiple times to go over soldering techniques (for those of us who are not electrical engineers) and basic repair guidelines for equipment. We honed our individual field of expertise by studying product guides and instruction manuals. My specialty was to become an expert in suction and infusion pumps. Not only would I focus my repairs in this area, but I could serve as a consultant for my peers. Our specialized roles were similar to “product champions” in industry. It was an effective use of our limited prep time, since we all had the simultaneous demands of academic studies.

This 4wd truck was our transportation during the week

When we finally arrived in Haiti, I was overwhelmed by competing porters who tried to push us into taxis. We found our ride and made it safely to Bernard Mevs Hospital where we could settle in and rest. The farthest I had ever been from home was Wisconsin, and I’d never been outside of the US except to visit Canada. When I woke up from my rest, the reality of where I was started to settle in and I was giddy to start working.

Before we started digging into donated medical equipment, we oriented ourselves with instructional Powerpoints from Dan. He emphasized that we should document all of our work, and never send out a piece of equipment unless it had been approved by multiple team members (after all, some of this equipment could cause deaths if malfunction occurred).

Our workspace for the first few days was much more luxurious than we were all anticipating because we were able to work in a room that was going to be turned into the new ICU, which had air conditioning and was free of mosquitoes.

The new workspace

For the last two days, we were moved back to the old bunkrooms where our team stayed last year. These rooms did not have air conditioning and were caked with dust from disuse.

Mackenzie using a flashlight while working in the old workspace

Much of the equipment we worked on was salvaged from the hospital storage, but lots of equipment was due to the generosity of Cardiostart, who donated patient monitors, vital signs monitors, infusion pumps, sphygmanometers, and thermometers. We had to thoroughly test and commission all of the donated equipment that we brought with us. But we also learned to prioritize tasks by urgency. Through conversation with volunteer physicians we learned that there were only two suction pumps for the entire hospital, and this was high priority for surgery and patient care. My personal highlight was working with my colleague, Kevin, to repair five out of six nonworking suction machines – and knowing the impact on patient lives in surgery and recovery.

However, this accomplishment was arguably overshadowed by Jared’s work, where he spent four grueling days testing a new model of infusion pump to prove that it did not deliver correct volumes at high rates of infusion. His work prevented the deployment of 20 identical infusion pumps that had all been donated brand new, but delivered up to 50% lower volumes than programmed. With his help the hospital was able to return those to the distributer in order to try to obtain properly calibrated machines. That experience heightened our awareness of the biomedical engineering role in instrument calibration.

During most of our stay, we worked alongside Haitian techs. We taught them how to repair some specialized equipment and they were very helpful with anything we asked of them. Overall, our team repaired or commissioned 3 patient monitors, one vital signs monitor, 5 single volumetric infusion pumps, 2 double volumetric infusion pumps, 2 sphygmanometers, one ultrasound, 4 EKG machines, one pulse oximeter, 5 suction pumps, and 5 digital thermometers.

        Kevin rebuilding and repairing suction pumps                                Kevin repairing infusion pumps

After equipment was fixed, we either handed it off to Jen, the Chief Nursing Officer, or we took it directly to the department that needed it. I delivered equipment to the ICU, emergency room, and pediatric intensive care (PICU). All of those deliveries were special because I knew that our work would enhance the quality of care in that department, and the nurses and doctors that received each device were always very thankful and told us how much it meant to them for us to donate our skills and energy to their hospital.

A personal highlight of the trip was our travel day on Tuesday, where our team and most of the other volunteers from the hospital took a bus up to Fort Jacques and then to a resort pool afterwards. I had my eyes set on the hike up to Fort Jacques ever since the first night, so needless to say I was ecstatic about this unique opportunity.

The view from Fort Jacques

This experience opened my eyes for the first time to life in a developing country. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The hospital needed as much help as it could get, and I wished that we could have stayed longer. Now that I am President of Biomedical Engineering club at University of Portland, I will try to arrange longer trips so that we can make the most impact possible. In Portland, I volunteer at multiple homeless shelters and an emergency room, but those experiences did not prepare me for the shock that I encountered when in the emergency room and ICU at Bernard Mevs hospital. The disarray of equipment, and waiting room full of car accident victims, is something that I will never forget. I want to do everything that I can in the future to make a positive impact in similar healthcare environments.