How many people are buying equipment without making the manuals part of the deal, wake up please.
This sort of nonsense has been going on (to my certain knowledge) for at least the last 35 years!
As long as equipment continues to be purchased by idiots, rather than by people who understand what they are doing, I can't see the situation changing anytime soon.
I have always believed that "best practice" requires that the technical manual should always be considered to be part of the (complete) equipment. It should always accompany it when first purchased, and in any subsequent transaction (including, I might add, at disposal ... released for sale, to the auction house, or wherever). In fact I would go so far as proposing that it should be made illegal to sell any item of technical medical equipment without operators' instructions and "all available technical documentation". And that goes for donated equipment too.
OK, let's be honest about the realities here. Manuals are sometimes "lost" or stolen (usually the latter). So that's a problem that has to be addressed. Hospitals practicing prudent policies (?) make copies of manuals (or, obtain more than one set in the first instance) and lock the master sets away! All of us here know that manuals are like gold-dust, yet most places I have been and seen are very careless about looking after them.
Perhaps the only "answer" is to have a central location somewhere in
cyberspace where all technical information is stored in .pdf format (or whatever). That is, regardless of manufacturers' objections, "copyright", and all that other stuff aimed (not at helping techs out in the field), but at
gouging a little more for manuals that have (presumably) already been paid for somewhere along the line. Any volunteers?
