This past summer marked the WashU Guatemala Initiative’s (WUGI) third annual trip to Roosevelt Hospital in Guatemala City. Roosevelt is the second largest public hospital in Guatemala, and because it is publicly funded, their resources are very tight. A lot of the medical equipment is quite old, and much of it has been donated from other countries to begin with. WUGI had the privilege to travel to Roosevelt and work on repairing some of this equipment.
We had been preparing for the trip all throughout the school year. Margarita Escobar-Kampwerth, a BJC clinical engineer, gave up several Saturday mornings to train us on some old BJC equipment. She even hauled several machines to campus for us so that we could get some hands-on experience. In addition to the equipment repair itself, one of our major goals is to collaborate with the engineering students Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). We have had extensive contact with UVG, and the ultimate goal is to have them be able to go in and work on equipment regularly, which of course they will be able to much more often than we can.
Read the full blog from WashU Engineering: WashU Guatemala Initiative