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Trained repair professionals at hospitals are regularly unable to fix medical devices because of manufacturer lockout codes or the inability to obtain repair parts. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, broken ventilators sat unrepaired for weeks or months as manufacturers were overwhelmed with repair requests and independent repair professionals were locked out of them. At the time, I reported that independent repair techs had resorted to creating DIY dongles loaded with jailbroken Ukrainian firmware to fix ventilators without manufacturer permission. Medical device manufacturers also threatened iFixit because it posted ventilator repair manuals on its website. I have also written about people with sleep apnea who have hacked their CPAP machines to improve their basic functionality and to repair them.
PS: he got it repaired.
In the medical field when a device can only be repaired by the manufacturer then you can expect long wait times, bad repair jobs and having your own equipment sent in for repair destroyed for “safety”.
We let people repair their own car’s brake pads… we shouldn’t give up ownership rights for a unwarranted claim to safety. If something is potentially dangerous then making it more difficult to repair is a bad idea.
We probably shouldn’t let people repair their own brake pads but that’s another argument. Not enough people die from randoms repairing their own brake pads. Repair an insulin pump the wrong way and it will absolutely kill you. Oxygen masks, CPAP machines, pace makers. So many medical devices that people rely on for life or death care.
I’m all for right to repair. But having seen some of the thing people have done to repair safety items I have serious doubts about the efficacy of someone repairing something wrong and killing their grandma. I can appreciate that not everyone feels the same way. I can appreciate that there are absolutely people out there who can and do repair their own devices, cars, machinery etc, and they may do it well. But there are always going to be people out there who don’t know what they’re doing but will try and then we’ll hear about them on the news because they touched a capacitor or something.
This depends on the area of medical device. I work in medical device but totally different from this, mine get implanted into your body.
I doubt many people have the knowledge to to truly troubleshoot our devices beyond what the doctor is allowed to do. We need a bunch of expensive and specialized hardware to troubleshoot.
We are legally required to investigate and report any complaints(https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfmaude/search.cfm) . If we don’t get the complaint we can’t investigate and report it.
If a certain number(honestly I don’t know the specific number) of complaints occur we are legally required to create a corrective action to help the patients immediately (or as soon as possible) and a preventive action to ensure it doesn’t effect other patients. If a person has an issue and “repaired” it themselves they don’t get counted in this and as such could cause more patients to suffer.
While I agree with right to repair I think certain things should be exempt. That said then there should be a requirement of the manufacturer to ivestigate/repair the equipment.
2+3. I don’t think that’s a problem. Presumably you’re already in contact with others to share information. Do that but as part of a larger, more open community.
When a defibrillator implant incorrectly shocks a pregnant women as an edge case she has to take meds to slow her heart so it doesn’t shock her. Doctors never think of the software running on it, and can’t get the code because it’s proprietary. People would be able to fix it, perhaps without even removing it, but can’t because business. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=easb_6LCFDI