The issue of mains extension leads must be one of the safety topics most talked about in the last thirty years of medical engineering. The 'fight' to promote good safe working practices in places like theatres, where they are often most needed but least allowed. How often a trade-off between what is safe practice and what will keep the users, who want more outlets near the operating table and less mains cable to trip over, quiet! Legislation aside though and for general interest only, having a trolley-load of equipment fed from one supply cable can easily present the attending problem of too much leakage current down one earth line. The simplest way to get around this so that the system can pass the regular safety test as one assembly, is to use an isolation transformer. This will drastically reduce the amount and give added safety, that the legislation is aiming at, as well. So perhaps we should all be buying up a heap of trannies. Far easier to deal with perhaps than having to screw and unscrew things everytime one wants to change a piece of kit over, and a good trannie though a mite expensive, can be basically water-tight, ideal in the wet areas of our clinical partners. So if the choice is between 'hard-connected' plugs and sockets or a trannie (plus regular extension blocks) that almost 'never will die' or go wrong, unlike non-standard extension blocks that might develop sloppy and hence bad contacts over time; etc. etc, the simple well-built workhorse of the a.c.world could be the best and safest option.
Hmmmm !