Africa-Press – Namibia. AFTER three years of supplying mostly disposable items to doctors, Ndati Shipanga realised that manufacturing medical equipment locally could lead to economic development and the creation of jobs, and decided to give it a go.
“If a doctor wanted gloves, I would buy them and supply him. If he wanted swabs, I would get them for him too, but then we were operating on a small scale,” he revealed in an interview with The Namibian last Wednesday.
“Operating as Greenmed Holdings, we imported most of our stuff from South Africa and one day I bought a hospital bed for a client, and asked a welder friend if we could not make a similar bed in Namibia.
“We did not have the right equipment so we outsourced some of the work like bending the steel and produced a replica of the South African import. That is how Namibia Medical Engineering, a subsidiary of Greenmed, was established,” he said.
The company operates from Oshapaka Complex in the Northern Industrial Area of Windhoek, and employs 12 people.
They specialise in making medical equipment including hospital examination beds, bed screens, dressing and instrument trolleys, stools, bedside lockers, oxygen cylinder stands, drug cabinets and a variety of mobile drip stands.
“What we cannot manufacture for clients, we can still import from overseas, except for medication,” said administrative officer Uutoni Dorotea.
Shipanga said the government and private doctors are their biggest clients.
“We were fortunate that at the onset of Covid-19, the Ministry of Health and Social Services ordered a large number of beds for the wards.
The government is still our biggest client because they have the capacity to order a large number of beds at one time.”
Namibia Medical Engineering manager Penny Nangolo said the Bank of Namibia also bought a large number of beds and oxygen dispensers last year, presumably to donate to new Covid wards.
In addition to manufacturing, Shipanga said they also repair broken equipment.
“Gone are the days when broken beds were sent to the scrapyard. We now bring them back into service for a few more years, saving the government some money,” he said.
Private individuals can also order items like steel beds, tables and TV stands.
“They can even bring their designs and we will make the items for them,” he said.
The advantage of manufacturing locally is that they can discuss with clients the specifications of the items they want as opposed to importing where ‘one size fits all’.
He urged other business people to start manufacturing whatever they can locally to develop the country’s economy and create jobs.
“We have the resources – materials, people and the market in the country – we can do it. Our next challenge as a company is to manufacture an electric hospital bed.”
One of the biggest challenges the company faces is the lack of tools to produce state-of-the-art equipment for hospitals, however, Shipanga says they are making progress in acquiring them.
He added that training and skills transfer was important for the company as it empowered the workers to venture into unchartered waters with confidence.
“We have diversified to embrace bio-medical engineering. This is basically repairing and refurbishing old hospital equipment to make it affordable to local doctors.”
He said as advocates of the ‘Buy Local, Grow Namibia’ campaign, local manufacturers are able to determine the prices of their products as opposed to imports where the prices are determined by manufacturers overseas.
As part of its expansion programme, Shipanga said Namibia Medical Engineering is establishing a private hospital in the northern industrial area.
“It is 80% complete and we are waiting for inspections. We are partnering with local doctors in the establishment of the hospital. We are focusing on Namibian doctors who have completed their internships and want to go into private practice.
For More News And Analysis About Namibia Follow Africa-Press
