Through the lens of a Hospital :Necessity is the mother of Invention

 

Through the lens of a Hospital

Bio Medical Department:-Necessity is the mother of invention

It was at around 7.30am, our BME received a call that there was leakage of oxygen gas from the pipeline fitted at  first floor (outside the building) of one of the Hospital  Block. The electrician on duty  informed that he had put adhesive tape on the leakage to prevent the leakage but still there was leakage.

It was a  rainy day; there was traffic jam due to water logging in the streets. Most of the officials were late in reaching office even she had struggled to reach hospital. On her way to office, she informed the vendor Vision I Healthcare (vendor) to send technicians, also briefed them about the incident. 

On reaching office, after enquiry it was found that during night duty round security supervisor  spotted  the leakage. He immediately informed the emergency department as well as the night in-charge on duty. The emergency technician along with the on duty electrician had tried to resolve the issue but could not. They informed the incident to  Bio Medical Engineer (BME) as well as the head of the department.

 It was evident that somebody had tried to pull off the copper wires (medical gas pipeline) but when the gas came out forcefully he/she left the pipe and ran away. The matter was also informed to the Police  to avoid future litigation. Extra medical gas cylinders were ordered to ensure that ample stock is available to cope up with the gas leakage. In the meantime the technician from Vision I Healthcare reached office to repair the leakage.

BME on the first hand enquired the number of patients admitted in the ICU, HDU. She was informed that a man of age 42 was admitted in ICU and was also on ventilator. It was a big challenge for her. Neither she could allow medical gas to be leaked nor could she stop the flow of oxygen for the repairing. As it is rightly said necessity is the mother of invention….her right step at right time helped in repairing the leakage without stopping the oxygen flow for the patient..

She practically thought of  the system that is allowing the oxygen to flow from the manifold room to the patient bedside... is just a connected closed system. She explained the system,  oxygen cylinder is connected in the manifold room then oxygen flows through the central line pipe and finally reaches  the patient  who receives oxygen at bedside outlet. In this case the central pipeline was leaking, if such small similar closed system can be made where  oxygen cylinder can have a small pipeline and also have a outlet at the  end of the pipeline then it can be  directly connected  to the ventilator supply and the patient can get direct flow from the cylinder and hence the central line system would not be required to supply oxygen to a ventilated patient.

The same system was  practically made and with the support of that, though the patient was on ventilation,  the oxygen supply was  disconnected from manifold room and the leakage was repaired.

The strategy made by BME had worked , it was a big success. Leakage was repaired without hampering the patient care.

Take away:-

Necessity is the mother of Invention.