Critical shortage – DHB needs loan items returned

Media Release

July 4, 2006

Critical shortage of loan equipment – DHB needs items returned

Capital & Coast District Health Board is facing a critical shortage of short-term loan equipment with a dwindling pool of a wide range of items as people fail to return them when they are no longer needed.

Manager of Materials Management, Brian Durning, who administers the pool of loan equipment, says the situation had become serious with more than 2000 items, including shower stools, commodes and crutches, missing from the hospital’s equipment stores at Wellington Hospital, Kenepuru Hospital and Kapiti Health Centre. This equates to about $100,000 worth of missing equipment.

More and more often C&C DHB is being forced to hire extra equipment to cover the shortfall, cutting into already stretched budgets.

“This situation has the potential to prevent patients being discharged from hospital,” Mr Durning says.

The equipment is vital in helping people rehabilitate and return home.

“We are finding that increasingly, people are forgetting to return the equipment, or they misplace it, shift away from the area, or simply do not bother to bring it back to the hospital,” he says.

C&C DHB is asking the public to urgently return any hospital equipment they have borrowed and no longer need – “no questions asked”.

Equipment can be dropped off to the Grace Neill Block at Wellington Hospital, the Main Entrance at Kenepuru Hospital and the Main Entrance at Kapiti Health Centre.

Usually patients are required to return the equipment to the hospital themselves, but to help get these items back, people who are unable to get to the hospital can contact Equipment Co-ordinator Paul Allen on (04) 385 5999 extn 6334 to arrange to have them collected.

ENDS

© Scoop Media