EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Spare Parts Used Equipment Always Wanted

Geoff

With a Band 8b as manager, a Band 5/6 in day to day charge and several Band 3s doing the work? Excuse the cynicysm but I've just spent the afternoon on a matching panel.

Thankfully old Mate, I don't even know what a matching panel is (although I expect I could hazard a guess). Something to do with recording studios, perhaps?

In truth, Dicky, for me it's a case of "don't know, and don't want to know"!

I think you are probably well out of it for your sanity.

Ain't that the truth!

No need to waste valuable time on preparation, Mr. Paul, I would be interested in equipment in "as is" condition. What more can I expect for a tin of biscuits, after all? I would rather that you limited your "safe disablement" to the simple removal of the mains lead though. No need to apply the hammer (as I have seen many times before, sadly). Meanwhile, the white van is standing by!

Thank you both, Mr.Geoff and Mr. John, for your clear comments on this issue.

My favourites are Garibalidis, Trader.

Meanwhile, Dicky, maybe you just need to chill-out and get a life, as they say. How about this one?

Ultimately, the machines must win. It's inevitable!

Greetings all. Allow me to wade into this controversy. I am a foreigner-Canadian. We run into this disposal issue on a regular basis. I do find it somewhat interesting that in Canada as in the UK, legal eagles advise disposal and hospitals take notice until they are able to generate some funds and then the legal concerns go away. I cannot speak for the in-country used equipment dealers but for groups/charities such as the one I am employed by, the chance of being sued by a developing nation for used hospital equipment is approx 0. Here are the reasons why. A hospital in a developing nation that requests equipment is almost always a charity or mission hospital. The groups that send it are most often a charity. They should be testing the equipment. In that case they have put their service into the machine. The identification of the original owner must be removed. Patients who seek treatment in a mission hospital are not going to sue someone, period. They do not have the resources, it would be culturally offensive to bite the hand that helps and all legal action would have to be in an international court. Do the legal eagles or the beureaucraticaly paranoid ever think about this? The landfills do not need more material. It is much better to send it to assist people less fortunate than ourselves than to scrap it. In Canada most hospitals choose to ignore the liability. Since it is basically non-existent that makes sense. We do deal with hospitals that refuse to donate. We have repeatedly verbally been informed by government representatives that even though we contravene Canadian law they are not interested in prosecuting. They have bigger fish to fry and they support what we are doing. Of course this will not come in writing and apparently the lawmakers have more important things to do as well. So we will continue. I would urge everyone concerned about this issue to locate a responsible organization that checks and donates equipment to developing nations and send the unwanted equipment their way. It is cheaper to ship it to them, as parts if need be, than to destroy and send to a landfill. Thanks for taking the time to read this rant. Hopefully it is helpful.



One hospital has discovered that classifying equipment as parts only has passed the legal requirements. You can also remove all identifcation linking the equipment to your facility.

I always feel that donated equipment should be both usable and maintainable otherwise it is utterly useless to the recipients.

I visited Georgetown in Guyana when my daughter was stationed there with Foreign Office and paid a courtesy visit to Medical Physics in the local hospital (I later visited the same hospital with a broken ankle – but that is another story and very scary).

The poor guy in there was faced with a mountain of KRAP donated by well meaning charities. There were: pulse oximeters with boards that couldn’t be repaired/replaced; x-ray equipment that was falling to bits and 16 IV pumps, for which giving sets were unobtainable. I could go on!

Being a cynic I sometimes feel that charities donate some of this equipment without much thought as to its after life. But hey – it makes them feel good and gets them some publicity with the non-discerning public.

My son has recently returned from Malawi, where he observed that many of these charities had NGOs running around in plush 4x4s and living in relative luxury. He felt that many (not all) of these charities were wasting money on staff and useless projects.

Sorry. Rant over. Looking forward to retirement on 7th December.

Retirement, Alastair? Why not join the Buddies and help put the world to rights?

Geoff
Getting old and decrepit for such jaunts and "She Who Must be Obeyed" has a list of must do tasks as long as your arm.