Maintenance logistics and operator personnel support on availability of medical equipment in base hospitals of the western province in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Operational availability of equipment was revealed as 57 percent. This figure seemed to be above that of the developing countries. There was no significant difference of operational availability among each hospital of the province; however, different equipment categories showed wide variation of operational availability. Twenty five out of eighty five pieces of equipment were not ready for use at all, through out the period of study. Operational availability figures were seen clustered at both ends of a continuum. Technical faults accounted for most of the downtime ( 77 percent). Lack of facilities and Lack of consumables accounted for 7 percent of downtime each. Assessment of "mean time taken for repair" and "mean time between failures" was not possible due to the limited period available for the study