HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27039, 25 March 1949, Page 6

HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT

USE IN OUTSIDE WORK TOTAL PROHIBITION Should equipment purchased for the hospital be allowed to go out of the hospital buildings for use elsewhere? This question was raised at the meeting of the Otago Hospital Board last evening, when Dr A. S. Moody, as chairman of the Budgeting Committee, moved the adoption of the capital tentative estimates for the coming year, with the exception of expenditure included for certain specialised items of equipment. Dr Moody stated that he had gone through the record book which was kept to account for the usage of hospital. equipment away from the hospital and he had been amazed at the simple instruments which were taken out on loan by even senior medical practitioners of the town. He did not consider that it was the province of the Hospital Board to supply instruments and equipment for use outside the hospital. It was a difficult problem, said Dr Moody, and it was the board’s responsibility to decide just what the policy was to be in regard to the use of hospital equipment outside the hospital. “I certainly think that it is in the practitioner’s own interests that he should get his own instruments,” said Dr N. H. North. Mrs N. Ross suggested that a stocktaking should be held on hospital equipment. It was suggested that a total prohibition on the taking of equipment from the hospital should be imposed, and Dr J. Fulton asked how any such system could be implemented. “ I think we may be condemning people unheard,” he said. “We have no evidence that the system may have been abused.” “I looked at the book to-day and I could see that.it was abused,” said Dr Moody. “ I think it a dreadful state of affairs that equipment bought for the hospital for the treatment of patients should not be in the hospital at all times,” said Dr N. H. North. It was moved and adopted that, with immediate effect, no equipment, whether medical, surgical or household, should be allowed out of the hospital.