Home Medical Equipment
Buy and sell home medical equipment in Costa Rica.
A hospital bed, a patient hoist or an oxygen concentrator usually arrives at a house in a hurry, after a discharge or a diagnosis, and leaves months later in full working order, often bound for a family that needs the same thing next week. New and pre-owned both belong in the search, from a crank-operated bed to a concentrator with a low reading on its hour counter. Renting beds and concentrators is common in the Central Valley, so a used one has to beat the monthly rate. Before you call about a bed, measure the bedroom door and the corridor that leads to it.
Hospital-type beds come with cranks or with motors:
and that is the first split to make. A manual bed raises the back and knees with hand cranks at the foot: cheap, nothing electrical to fail, but someone winds it every time. A semi-electric bed moves back and legs from a handset and leaves the height on a crank; a fully electric one also lifts the whole deck, which spares a carer’s back. Most come with side rails and a foam mattress that bends with the deck, while an alternating air mattress with its own pump is extra, and an over-bed table on a wheeled base is the usual companion. Walkers, wheelchairs and shower chairs are under mobility aids, part of the wider medical and mobility branch.
Concentrators and hoists are chosen by the room they go in:
a stationary concentrator runs on mains power day and night and wants clear air round its vents, a socket of its own rather than an extension lead, and a bedroom where its hum keeps nobody awake. The flow has to match the prescription, so read the maximum printed on the unit first. A mobile hoist lifts a person in a fabric sling, by hand pump or by battery. Its legs must roll under the bed, which rules out a divan sitting flat on the floor, and slings come in sizes, so ask which one is included.
A hospital bed has to get through the front door first:
so measure before you commit. It is longer and a little wider than a single bed, and it only gets through a narrow door or a tight corridor with the head and foot boards off and the deck split, which many frames allow with a spanner. Taking one home means a pick-up and a second pair of hands, and from the Central Valley out to Nicoya that is a day’s trip rather than an errand.
Motors and the mattress set a hospital bed’s price:
a manual bed with its mattress costs around ₡400,000 new, and an electric one starts near ₡650,000. Renting is the norm for beds and concentrators alike, and a bed runs roughly ₡40,000 to ₡75,000 a month depending on how many motors it has. For a few months renting is the sensible sum; once the need has no end date, buying comes out ahead within a year. On a used electric bed the motors and handset carry the value: a burnt-out motor or a missing handset takes a large share off the price, and the mattress adds little, since most buyers replace one that has been slept on for months.
Run the motors, pump the hoist and read the hour counter:
home-care equipment is bought on seeing it work. Take every motor on an electric bed through its full travel, listening for grinding or a stall under weight; on a manual one every crank should be there and turn smoothly. Rails and the over-bed table should lock firm when you lean on them. A hydraulic hoist pumped to the top should hold, come down slowly on its release valve and show no oil on the mast, and its sling should have no frayed straps. Leave a concentrator running while you talk: the alarm lights should settle, the ball in the flow meter should sit steady, and the hour counter shows how hard it has worked. Ask for the model and check that its filters, handset or sling can still be found in Costa Rica. Tubing and cannulas are always bought new.
The bed that leaves a house when home care ends:
is often close to new, so photograph it fully raised, with the handset or cranks, the weight-rating label and the mattress cover close up, or for a concentrator the hour counter with the unit running. Say whether it comes apart and that it has been disinfected. Someone driving over from Guápiles in a borrowed pick-up wants to know before setting off that the handset works, that every crank and bolt is taped to the frame, and how many people the heaviest piece takes.