I have been caregiving for My Late Father for the past 6 years. He passed away peacefully at home with all of us around him, aged 95. On December 8th 2024.
He has been using urine bags attached to his catheter for the past 2 years. And i have also gone thru my fair share of dealing with UTI infections he got and multiple hospitalisations, sometimes more than 3x in a year, just because he was using a catheter. That's the nature of using Catheters.
But what frustrated me the most was dealing with the low cost urine bags, given by the hospitals. i know we were supposed to change urine bag every week, but in my experience, they tend to tear even before its due date. And they always tear at the hanging point. This is especially so, when i go to empty the bag in the morning, as it becomes full in the mornings. This is even so after we empty the bag the night before.
I asked myself, why am i throwing away a perfectly good urine bag before its weekly due date? This added to my frustrations of care giving and i had to worry about one more thing of getting urine bag replacements. I felt it was unnecessary in care giving.
I thought about how much plastics the healthcare industry was using and decided to do something about it. Mind you, this isn't what i do for a living. I am in the media line.
As i was spending more time at home taking care of my Dad. I set out to learn 3D design and prototyping a solution. After many months of trial and failures and repeats. Uroclips was born. What you see here is version 35.
1. I wanted something to work with current ecosystem of urine bags and hangers. √
2. it has to be low cost and reusable. √
3. It has to be made of recycled materials.√
4. It has to be simple.√
5. Most importantly improve caregiving at home.√
i hope this small sharing will help you in a small way on your caregiving journey.
Kudos to all caregivers out there. Caregiving Its not easy but i believe every small support can go a long way. Caregivers need support too:)
Take Care of Yourselves, And don't worry about the small things.
Senthil.m
Uroclips
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