The Ministry of Health suggested creating a National Biomedical Engineering Center that will work based on the principle of self-financing and will focus on the maintenance, checking and utilization of medical devices. The costs of running the institution will be covered with incomes earned from providing services on a contract basis. Such provisions are contained in a Government decision concerning the medical devices management strategy for 2015-2020, IPN reports.
To open the Center, about 4 million lei is needed for outfitting it and training the personnel. A sum of 1.6 million will be needed annually for staging training seminars for doctors, suppliers of medical devices and bioengineers of medical institutions.
The bill, put forward by the Ministry of Health, says the medical devices possessed by the medical institutions can be used during 40 years at a time when the international norms allow using them during 10 years at the most. There is an acute shortage of specialists who design and produce new biomedical equipment.
The public health system has over 24,000 active medical devices with a high level of wear. Over 37% of the devices are aged over 10 years, 8.7% are not functional or need a major overhaul, while 43.2% are in the possession of the medical-sanitary institutions of Chisinau.
The medical devices management strategy for 2015-2020 will be implemented at a cost of about 85 million lei.
