Hi there. We have had this problem too. We had a rep come in to the hospital direct to the Breast Surgery team selling her centrifuge. It has no interlock, and the same excuse was given - the label is sufficient. She also tried to say that no other centrifuge was acceptable because the syringes being spun in the thing would be compromised (the sleeves they sit in could get contaminated).
Anyway, I asked our senior scientist in the Pathology team to help us, and his advice was that the centrifuge was unsuitable. I can do a bit of digging and see what machine we got in the end, but he was most supportive. He said they had had the same problem with the same company before, and the result had been the same; they bought a different machine.
The rep wasn't happy, but in my book that's just tough. She should have come through the right channels. Also, having been asked to bring the machine in through Medical Physics and agreeing to do so, she didn't. I caught her out by asking the senior ODA if he had seen her, and he said she was in his theatre as we spoke, with him using the machine... not his fault, and he was most upset that she was lying to him and using him to get her own way. If I had my way, she would now be banned from selling to our Trust.
Among all this, there were no decontamination instructions or documentation provided, which is essential.
The procedure this machine was being used to support was quite interesting. Apparently after cutting out the cancerous breast tissue and rebuilding the breast, the wounds heal best if you can inject some of the fat tissue under the stitched up skin. There must be no blood in the fat (hence using the centrifuge) but it gives a really good finish to what would otherwise be pretty grim scars. They heal flatter and cleaner. It is nice to think that such a small idea has such big benefits.
