Hospitals worldwide may not have the right or knowledge to repair ventilators which break down

AMAZING as it may seem many companies nowadays, particularly in the USA, do not issue or allow to be issued, repair documents for many products as they want to keep the information in-house and to generate income from repairs themselves.

An American public interest group US PIRG supports a Right to Repair Campaign and has sent petitions to a number of ventilator manufacturers which include Phillips, GE Healthcare and Siemens demanding that for the good of the country they should immediately release service manuals.

It makes sense if a third party can immediately start work on a broken or malfunctioning ventilator rather than wait until a company repair person is available, especially as the work force itself may be reduced due to illness.

Already, one manufacturer Medtronic has released information and another online information provider is organising some ventilator service information, but hospitals may have equipment produced by three or four different companies.

This same situation arises in Europe and although the European Union has been promoting the Right to Repair Electronics especially mobile phones as part of its Green policy, this is still somewhat in its infancy and has to be extended for unforeseen circumstances such as these.

There is however also a question for the future as to whether individual governments will agree to these repair demands after the end of the crisis as they will be trying to rebuild their economies and therefore want to see new equipment sold rather than old items repaired.

Written by

John Smith

Married to Ophelia in Gibraltar in 1978, John has spent much of his life travelling on security print and minting business and visited every continent except Antarctica. Having retired several years ago, the couple moved to their house in Estepona and John became a regular news writer for the EWN Media Group taking particular interest in Finance, Gibraltar and Costa del Sol Social Scene. Currently he is acting as Editorial Consultant for the paper helping to shape its future development. Share your story with us by emailing newsdesk@euroweeklynews.com, by calling +34 951 38 61 61 or by messaging our Facebook page www.facebook.com/EuroWeeklyNews

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