Cardiff Met Creates LED-Based Omni Portable Medical Light

It’s an LED-based light which could be invaluable for medical aid at road traffic accidents and also the provision of care where women are giving birth. Particularly, it has been designed with less economically developed countries in mind.

Cardiff Metropolitan Product Design student Graham Scutt created the Omni Portable Medical Light and received funding from Cardiff-based LED lighting manufacturers Sedna LED to enable him to complete the project.

The main material used for the light is Ingeo, reports the university. This is a bio-polymer which uses no oil for its manufacture and instead is made from plant sugars from corn. Ingeo is 100% annually renewably resourced and can be made from any abundantly available sugar, it states. Also it uses 0.05% of the annual global food crop and production has little to no impact on food chains.

“As well as developing countries having high maternal mortality rates in general, figures are higher in their rural communities. It is here that skilled care, before, during and after childbirth can save the lives of women and newborn babies. Currently, thousands of rural women give birth alone and by candlelight.”

The university quotes World Bank findings in 2012 that approximately one quarter of the sub-Saharan African population has access to electricity, with just enough electricity being generated to power one light bulb per person for just three hours a day. Blackouts in rural areas are also common as Africa’s electricity network is unreliable with no street lighting system in rural areas.

“Combining these findings show a requirement for an emergency medical treatment lighting system that is quickly deployable in rural areas under any condition,” adds Graham.