Apply right to repair to medical equipment
Aconsumer should have the ability to make repairs to devices and hardware he or she has purchased. This is the argument behind the “right to repair,” a movement to prohibit companies, such as Apple and John Deere, from restricting repairs on their products via obstructive corporate policies or denying access to diagnostic tools and manuals. Attempting to block people from fixing items they own — often by threatening to invalidate the manufacturer’s warranty — is a scam.
But medical equipment companies that refuse to make repair manuals and tools readily available during the COVID-19 crisis are actually threatening the health and safety of people in need of treatment. Ready access to the information needed to fix equipment such as a ventilator can mean the difference between life and death. This argument has not swayed many manufacturers.
Fortunately, the website iFixit, a long-time advocate of the right to repair, has released an extensive database of medical equipment service manuals. With more than 13,000 manuals in the database at launch, iFixit has offered biomedical technicians a much-needed resource for making quick repairs to essential equipment.
Trade groups like the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance dispute the utility of the iFixit database, arguing that existing qualitycontrol policies and regulatory requirements are in place because they save lives.
Those working on the front lines disagree.
“It’s not that it could mean life or death — it’s definitely life or death, especially during a pandemic,” said Nader Hammoud, manager of biomedical engineering at John Muir Health in California, during a recent virtual briefing covered by Wired magazine.
Paul Kelley, the director of biomedical engineering at Washington Hospital in Fremont, Calif., concurred, noting the change that has occurred during his four-decade career in medicine. “It’s getting more and more frustrating,” he said, according to Wired. “We can do less and less work on equipment. We’re getting less and less documentation. Training is getting harder, and parts are getting scarcer.”
Right to repair is a sensible idea that prioritizes consumers’ rights and, in the case of medical equipment, patient safety over the control of corporations. When dealing with home electronics or farming equipment, right to repair is commonsense. When it comes to medical equipment that could save lives, right to repair is essential.