Improving healthcare: Africa must resort to refurbished medical equipment – John Chigbu

Developing countries particularly those in Sub-Sahara Africa must resort to refurbished medical imaging equipment to improve healthcare delivery on the continent.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of Cassona Global Imaging Limited, Ghana, Mr John Chigbu, the high cost of new medical imaging equipment, such as X-ray, CT, and MRI makes it difficult for health facilities in the region to procure.

Speaking to journalists at a luncheon in Accra, Mr Chigbusaid a lot of deaths could have been avoided if there were adequate medical equipment to diagnose patients.

He said the company has established a presence in Ghana to help address the challenge by assisting medical facilities to access refurbished medical equipment from advanced countries at affordable rates.

He noted how the COVID-19 pandemic and the untimely death of some family members inspired his company to switch to the supply of PPEs and later to imaging equipment with Ghana as its point of supply.

“What I found lacking in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of my mother’s passing was the limited number of working equipment so I decided with my wife to focus on medical equipment, specifically those that dealt with imaging.”

Mr Chigbu said one of the challenges facing health facilities in Africa was the lack of adequate skills set for the maintenance and operationalization of some critical medical imaging equipment.

He observed that in some instances, health facilities were required to import personnel from advanced countries to repair their equipment, which further strained the finances of the hospital.

He said Cassona would not only provide health facilities access to capital to acquire essential medical imaging equipment but would also offer repair services as well as uninterrupted power supply.

“The access to capital is the biggest reason why Africa has few working machines on the continent. If private hospitals and facilities could afford these machines, they would be everywhere. A new machine can cost over a million dollars. You need to either pay in cash or with a credit facility and these facilities can’t afford them,” he said. 

Allaying fears of the negative perception that refurbished medical equipment was substandard, Mr Chigbu said the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has put strict measures in place to ensure that refurbished medical equipment was safe and effective.

He also revealed an allocation of three per cent of the company’s earnings to support needy medical students.

He said although the company had not made any income in Ghana yet, it would offer scholarships to two needy Ghanaianmedical students worth $10,000 this year as part of its corporate social responsibility.

“We are here to be part of the community. In order to be part of the community we have to invest and there is no better way than to give scholarships to medical students,” he said.

Cassona is an export trading company (ETC) that specializes in health products, especially in the Diagnostic Imaging field.