Your Cheapest Analyser Might Be Your Most Expensive One
A hospital in Nairobi bought a good analyser. It was a reputable brand at a competitive price, and the procurement committee did everything right.
Eighteen months later, an electrode failed.
The supplier’s engineer was in another country. The part had a six-week import lead time, and the reagents in the fridge would expire before it arrived.
For six weeks, every one of those tests went to a competitor down the road. Some of those patients never came back.
The Cost Nobody Puts in the Quotation
Procurement committees question the purchase price closely. Almost none of them put a price on downtime, even though over the life of a machine downtime usually costs more than the machine.
When an analyser goes down, you lose test revenue. You pay someone else to run your referrals. Your reagents expire on the shelf, and your lab team is paid either way.
The biggest losses are trust and habit. Once clinicians have been let down twice, they start sending work elsewhere before anything breaks. Patients you referred out in week two have a new lab by week six. And some clinical decisions get made without the result.
Work Out Your Own Number in Five Minutes
(Tests per day × fee per test) + (Referral costs) + (Idle staff hours × hourly cost)
= the cost of one day down
× days down in the last 12 months
= what downtime cost you last year
Compare that figure with the price gap between your cheapest quote and the one with real local service behind it. For most facilities, that settles it.
Three Questions to Ask Before You Sign
Ask every supplier, including us, and get the answers in the contract:
Where is your nearest engineer? We mean the engineer, not the head office.
What is your guaranteed response time, and what happens if you miss it?
Which spare parts are in Kenya right now? Ask for the list.
A supplier who answers clearly has thought about your uptime. A supplier who dodges the questions is telling you something too.
The analyser isn’t the product. The result is: every day, on the night shift, in year four, long after the warranty is over.
Talk Uptime Before Price
Before you evaluate any analyser, including ours, come and test our service capability.
✅ [X] biomedical engineers based in Kenya
✅ [X]-hour guaranteed response
👉 Book a demo or request a quotation
📞 +254 733 627 834
✉️ info@sam-techdiagnostics.com
Sam-Tech Diagnostics: Simple, Precise & Accurate.
