Touring 13 hospitals in 8 cities across Venezuela in 6 weeks to deliver IVD devices to local communities and train medical workers.
Driving 18+ hours cross the Andes mountain range and working 13+ hours per day to install ventilators and collaborate with ICU doctors in rural Colombia.
That’s how far we are willing to go to provide the essential solutions support to hospitals most quickly and efficiently during the crucial time of COVID-19, even under tremendous risks and uncertainty, because that’s how much we care about offering reliability and security to the global healthcare community.
On the eve of the COVID-19 fight in Venezuela
John Olaya is a service engineer from Mindray Colombia. In January 2020, John was assigned to inspect Mindray’s IVD machines that hospitals in Venezuela were using and install new devices requested to help the local communities get ready for the foreseeable fight with COVID-19.
From January 22nd when he arrived Caracas, Venezuela, in six weeks, John made visits to thirteen hospitals in eight cities across the nation. Many of these hospitals were using outdated models of hematology and biochemistry analyzers that were barely adequate in a pandemic situation, while five of them switched from manual analyzer to automated technology for the first time.
When John arrived at the last hospital, COVID-19 officially hit Venezuela. The hospital was responsible for attending confirmed cases which exposed him to serious risk of contracting the virus. John stayed at his job with no recess. With proper protection and professional procedure, he eventually accomplished all the tasks of the trip with twenty-six new IVD devices installed and over a hundred medical workers trained.
An unexpected situation appeared right before John was about to head back home. The border of Venezuela accessing Brazil and Colombia was temporarily shut down to prevent the spread of the disease into Venezuela. After meticulous planning and painstaking communication, John made a detour to Cuba and finally arrived home on March 18th.
A special road trip crossing the Andes mountain range
In mid-2020, when COVID-19 swept Colombia, Mindray received an order of sixty ventilators by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Colombia to be delivered to hospitals across the country. As much as the team in Mindray’s Bogota office wish to participate in this task, almost everyone in the office had to quarantine due to close contact with a business partner who was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Fabian Botero, Mindray clinical manager for anesthesia and mechanical ventilation in Latin America, and Bonnel Hincapie, service engineer, were the only employees available. They accepted the task with no hesitation and immediately boarded a police airplane from Cali to Tumaco guarded by counter-guerrilla force because the city is one of the most dangerous areas of Colombia. Fabian and Bonnel managed to deliver the devices and train the medical staff efficiently in such difficult conditions and took an eighteen hours road trip for around 683km back home.
Soon after the Tumaco trip was done, Fabian departed for the second trip to Bogota. this time, he had to take this personal car driving ten hours one-way and working more than thirteen hours per day to guarantee the timely delivery of all the devices. He also had to conduct training for ICU doctors who are at the forefront treating confirmed cases. As a clinician, Fabian well-acknowledged the risk of the work, but he knew that what he was doing could help saving patients’ lives and he was proud that he was able to help.
Stories like these happened every day in every corner of the world among Mindray’s global service team during the pandemic crisis. It has become muscle memory for us to act in patients’ best interests and to be counted on.
In this turbulent era, we are keen to become a source of certainty to the world through every mile we traveled and every machine we delivered.