The Field Engineer meets Mercy Ships' Biomedical Services Manager Simon Bor.'As a healthcare professional, I am passionate about improving patient safety and optimizing processes and systems to make care more efficient and cost-effective. I believe that good ideas are only valuable when they are actually put into practice; therefore, I am dedicated to implementing changes in healthcare.With a degree in Healthcare Technology from the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and my experience as a Medical Technician and Medical Technology Advisor (including Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs) at Erasmus MC, I possess broad knowledge of ensuring the safety of healthcare and medical technology.In 2022, I worked for four months as an (act.) Senior Biomedical Technician for Mercy Ships on the Global Mercy. I also started working for Mercy Ships as a Biomedical Technician II (Medical Technician) in Rotterdam. I have since recently taken on a new role: Biomedical Services Manager. In addition to my expertise in medical technology, I possess skills focused on computer use, ranging from design and technical calculations to word processing and web development: 3D-CAD, (Libre)Office, MATLAB, Mathcad, Ultimo, HTML, PHP, (My)SQL, Windows, and Linux (such as Ubuntu). I personally prefer Open Source solutions.My keywords are Medical technology, quality assurance, asset management, and processes.It is my passion to help others and contribute to safer and better healthcare worldwide by implementing good ideas, where I believe my knowledge and experience are invaluable'.Mercy Ships is a faith-based international development organisation that deploys hospital ships to some of the poorest countries in the world, delivering vital, free healthcare to people in desperate need.Conditions requiring surgical treatment kill more people in low-income countries than HIV/Aids, TB and malaria combined. Globally, five billion people have no access to safe, affordable surgery when they need it.In sub-Saharan Africa, up to 69% of people live on less than £2 a day. Healthcare in these countries either doesn't exist or is unaffordable to the vast majority of the population.Partnering with host nationsTo achieve this, Mercy Ships delivers a customised five-year partnership model with every country it is invited to support. Relationships are built with the national government and ministry of health, so that the needs of each country are met.In this way, Mercy Ships doesn’t just address the immediate need on the ground, but also works to strengthen the country’s healthcare systems and drive policy change. The aim is to tackle the root causes of the problems rather than just the consequences.As well as completing thousands of urgent operations onboard our floating hospitals, the Africa Mercy and the Global Mercy, Mercy Ships volunteers also work closely with host nations to improve the way healthcare is delivered across the country, by training and mentoring local medical staff, and renovating hospitals and clinics.Founded in 1978 by Don and Deyon Stephens, Mercy Ships has worked in more than 55 countries, providing services valued at more than £1.3 billion. By improving healthcare delivery in every country it visits, Mercy Ships is working to eradicate the diseases of poverty and effectively do itself out of a job. Mercy Ships follows the model of Jesus by “bringing hope and healing to the forgotten poor”, helping people of all faiths and none.Among the countries Mercy Ships serves, which lie on the lower third of the World Health Organisation’s Human Development Index, access to safe, affordable and timely surgery is extremely limited. As a result, countless people suffer and die from “diseases of poverty” that can easily be cured.
