Donation of Medical Imaging Equipment

ISRRT’s Position Statement

Donation of Medical Imaging Equipment

ISRRT’s Position Statement regarding Donation of Medical Imaging Equipment

ISRRT supports the principle of the donation of medical imaging equipment (new or refurbished) provided that the advice and guidelines established by the WHO are followed. WHO identifies barriers to effective donation of medical equipment including:

•    Lack of communication between donor and recipient
•    Insufficient appreciation for the challenges of the recipient’s context
•    Limited standardised inventory of medical equipment in resource constrained settings to identify needs
•    Insufficient support for the long term integration of new equipment
•    Insufficient connectivity between activities undertaken by various organisations working on donations
•    Lack accountability – no tracking and monitoring of donations and no existing quantification framework for impact of donations

ISRRT promotes the use of the WHO Donation framework and the responsibilities of both Donor and Recipient to ensure effective supply and use of donated equipment including transportation, training and on-going maintenance and support of equipment and staff.

Additionally ISRRT recommends that equipment donated:-
•    Should be supplied with a user’s manual in the native language of the end user
•    Should have all workstation control functions displayed in the users language to ensure that the ALARA principle, Justification and Optimization principles can all be practiced
•    Should not be commissioned until appropriate medical device training is delivered by a qualified and accredited Clinical Application Specialist to ensure radiation dose optimization.

ISRRT supports and promotes those international organisations which work in conjunction with WHO in the donation of medical devices.

www.who.int/entity/medical_devices/management_use/manage_donations/en/ – 30
www.who.int/medicines/areas/coordination/zanzibar_guidelines_donation.pdf – 250k
www.who.int/entity/medical_devices/publications/en/Donation_Guidelines.pdf – 194k
List of Organisations and roles pdf, 557kb

ISSRT also acknowledges the joint statement on the donation of medical imaging equipment by WHO and the IAEA following the International Conference on Radiation Protection – Setting the Scene for the Next Decade, held on Bonn, Germany, 3-7 December 2012.