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Mercy Biomedical Techs Save Money, Improve Lives in Southeast Asia

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080723-09
Release Date: 7/23/2008 4:48:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Mark Logico, Pacific Partnership 2008 Public Affairs

DILI, Timor-Leste (NNS) -- Biomedical engineer technicians (BMET) assigned to the naval hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) have made an impact on multiple hospital and clinic facilities in southeast Asia since the beginning of their Pacific Partnership 2008 mission in May, and now in Timor-Leste.

BMETs are electronics experts who repair a variety of medical and dental related electronic equipment. Mercy has a total of 12 BMET personnel from the U.S. Navy and Air Force who since the beginning of the deployment have provided free repairs on equipment, saving medical facilities including the ship more than $1.53 million worth of equipment.

"The host nations in these countries placed a request for us to make these repairs," said Chief Hospital Corpsman (SW/FMF) Alfredo Fontimayor, the leading chief petty officer of Mercy's BMET personnel. According to Fontimayor, there is a large demand for repair of medical equipment in Timor-Leste.

Mercy recently visited the Republic of the Philippines and Vietnam, and it is operating in Timor-Leste.

Fontimayor explained that in the Philippines, local medical facilities had difficulty maintaining and repairing medical equipment.

Just as in the Philippines, there are very few local medical repair technicians in Timor-Leste.

"We have a guy who fixes the cars, but he doesn't touch the medical equipment," said Nyree Gracey, the Bario Pite clinic manager in Dili. The equipment is expensive Gracey explained and she wants to ensure that the person repairing it has a background in biomedical repair

"The equipment must have been broken for like two to three years. Some of them looked like they've been sitting there for a long, long time."

BMET Chief Hospital Corpsman Israel Matondo said he encountered an X-ray machine that dated back to the 1940s at the Calbayog Public Hospital in Cotabato, Philippines.

"Replacement parts becomes a serious issue because most of the equipment [is] old," said Matondo. "Most of which just needed to be replaced entirely."

Hospital Corpsman 1st Class (FMF) Michael Thomas worked on replacing several small hoses on Dili General Hospital's mobile dental chair.

"Some of these hoses needed to be replaced after five years," said Thomas. "If you try to move a hose that's been stationary for 'x' number of years, and it's dried out it just cracks up like a piece of dry wax."

Biomedical repair is a small part of Pacific Partnership 2008. Pacific Partnership 2008 provides friendship and humanitarian assistance in Southeast Asia in cooperation with partner and host nations including representatives from Australia, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Canada and the Republic of Korea and the many non-governmental organizations.

For more news from Pacific Partnership 2008, visit www.navy.mil/local/PP08/.