I doubt that you'll be seeing any of
those again; I imagine they will all be long gone.

Anyway, let me put that right for you:-
"... the patients families don't
realise care how expensive bits of kit are and they get thrown away before we can retrieve them".
And, "thrown away"? - or "sold"?

Or, put another way, maybe they
have realised how valuable they are.
Either way, the solution is:-
bill them!
