By K. Richard Douglas
From providing emergency supplies to Sudanese refugees to supplying farming resources to poor farmers in Syria to bringing much-needed aid to the victims of floodwaters in Highland Falls, New York, the Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse is always at the standby.
And those are examples of a few recent events. The organization has been providing help, funding and emergency supplies to those in dire circumstances for more than 53 years. Led by Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, the organization goes anywhere in the world where help is needed.
For those who fall victim to earthquakes, hurricanes, wars or famine, Samaritan’s Purse has provided aid and comfort, which includes a medical mission. The organization runs 50 hospitals and many smaller clinics and outreach programs. With all these medical facilities, the not-for-profit organization needs HTM professionals to manage, repair, maintain and calibrate equipment.
Samaritan’s Purse World Medical Mission’s Technical Support team is made up of 22 members. Team members include Assistant Director and Technical Support Supervisor David Bucklin; Assistant Supervisor Monte Oitker, CRES; eight full-time biomedical technicians; six “on-call” biomedical technicians; as well as four laboratory, one electrical and one mechanical support staff.
Bucklin explains that Samaritan’s Purse International Relief is a Christian humanitarian aid organization with several programs aimed at meeting the spiritual and physical needs of those who fall victim to war, disease, natural disasters and poverty. Though Samaritan’s Purse is not a permanent health care facility, one of its unique services involves a team of biomedical equipment technicians.
“The catalyst for adding biomeds, in the World Medical Mission arm of Samaritan’s Purse, came as a result of numerous volunteer doctors describing their experiences working at mission hospitals. Most had little equipment to work with, and chances are it did not work properly, if at all. The need was prevalent, so Samaritan’s Purse hired a biomed and began accepting donations of medical equipment and supplies. Sea containers were loaded with the items and shipped abroad with the intent of improving health care services beyond just the scope of recruiting doctors to come practice,” he says.
Bucklin says that today, this team’s scope of biomedical services expands far beyond their shop in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
“Their work is divided between their international ‘customers’ and their own colleagues. For the mission hospitals that Samaritan’s Purse partners with, they offer shipments of supplies and equipment in addition to remote and on-site services. This includes installation/repair/training and consulting. The volume of equipment they are able to source has drastically increased as well. No longer do they rely only on donations, but now have a budget by which they can purchase new and used equipment specific to their clients’ needs,” he says.
Everything that enters their warehouse goes through a double check-out procedure by two different technicians: the first one performs any preventative maintenance (PM) and places it in inventory as “operational.” The second technician performs a functional check and makes sure the device has any necessary accessories and documentation before shipment. The other group this biomed department supports resides within the organization itself. Several medical outreaches have developed as more health care professionals are looking for opportunities to volunteer in short-term missions. The biomedical department therefore prepares equipment and travels internationally with the emergency field hospital, cleft lip and palate, orthopedic, cataract and other surgical teams. The year 2022 saw the biomed team process over 3,000 pieces of medical equipment for mission hospitals and perform PMs on approximately 450 pieces [of equipment] for the emergency field hospital and surgical specialty teams.
Data collection is managed through an internally developed inventory and tracking systems.
Also, the establishment of contracts is a little different.
“Our department is unique; we do not work on a contract basis. We provide services as our resources allow,” Bucklin says.
Global Responsibility
With a worldwide backdrop, the biomed team faces challenges and projects that are unique to the organization it supports.
“We have many projects that our team consults, designs and builds. One project we are presently working on is a multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art cardio-thoracic surgical center at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya,” Bucklin says.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Samaritan’s Purse deployed an emergency field hospital to numerous sites, first in Cremona, Italy, and then various sites in the United States.
“Providing adequate oxygen for use in a respiratory response became critical. We were blessed to have liquid O2 available on most sites but put in motion a project to develop a deployable oxygen generating system with higher output capacity than small portable units. Our field hospital utilized a POGS 33 system in past deployments, but this was not adequate. Our team purchased EDOCS-120 units (5) and devised a control system that would generate 600LPM for use in future field hospital deployments, if necessary,” Bucklin says.
In 2019, the biomed team began offering a summer internship program which offers two undergraduate students and one international biomed technician the opportunity to spend a couple months at its facility in North Wilkesboro.
“These interns have the opportunity to be exposed to a wide variety of medical devices, perform repairs and PMs and potentially travel abroad to a remote mission hospital to carry out equipment repairs in an environment that provides challenges and where ingenuity is required,” Bucklin says.
While most biomeds serve the needs of a hospital or group of hospitals in their general geographic area, the team at Samaritan’s Purse has oversight over medical devices in every corner of the world.
Nearly 40 years after the first biomed joined the organization, the department has experienced meaningful growth as it strives to keep up with the number of mission hospitals (now more than 50 partner and 100 affiliate locations) and other medical programs that have formed within the organization.
