A Palestinian-Canadian doctor has created a low-cost stethoscope using a 3-D printer, the first in a series of inventions he hopes will help alleviate medical supply shortages caused by an eight-year blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Tarek Loubani says his stethoscope can be made for just $2.50, a fraction of the cost of leading brands, and some doctors say the equipment is just as good.
The shortage of basic medical devices in the isolated Palestinian territory "is something that I think we can translate from a big problem to a big win for us in Gaza," said Loubani, an emergency medicine doctor from London, Canada, whose Glia Project aims to provide medical supplies to impoverished places like Gaza.
Hospitals have been struggling since the militant Hamas group took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 and Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on the territory. The import restrictions have led to shortages of medicines and basic supplies like medical consumables and IV bags.
Three wars with Israel, a bitter political rift between rival Palestinian factions and a failure by international donors to deliver on promised pledges of money have compounded the crisis.
Loubani hopes to "produce these devices locally so they meet local needs and so that they are not dependent of the political winds of the Israelis and of the donor community."
The 34-year-old emergency medicine doctor from London, Ontario, helped out at Shifa, Gaza City's main hospital, during an eight-day war between Israel and Palestinianmilitants in 2012.
As wounded Palestinians poured into the emergency room, the doctors there had to make due with just two stethoscopes, he said.
Back in Canada after the war, he was playing with his nephew's toy stethoscope when he realized a real stethoscope's ear tube might not need to be made of stainless steel. After several years of researching, designing and testing, Loubani and his team unveiled a plastic prototype last month.
The first 3-D printed stethoscope was tested in Canada using a balloon filled with water.
