Bring back our stuff: Te Whatu Ora Southland’s plea to users of loan equipment

Te Whatu Ora Southland is pleading for former patients to bring back its loan equipment, so its hospitals can help others in need.

The organisation services patients from across the region, including Queenstown, Gore, Invercargill and the wider Southland region, as well as ACC clients.

However, with many people not returning items once their loan time was up, the hospital was losing time, money and resources, the hospital’s acting team community team unit manager Stacey Muir said.

“It’s amazing how often even some of those big items get lost out in the community,” she said.

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“I think sometimes people get mixed up and think that possibly it’s theirs to keep rather than a loan item.”

Muir said the big ticket items like orthopaedic chairs, ramps, and hospital beds were pressure points for the team, but the smaller items like walking frames, shower stools and over toilet frames were also causing issues for equipment staff.

A walking frame costs around $500 to replace, and a specialist pressure relieving cushion can go for $1500, she said.

While it may not seem like a major issue, the problem arises when another patient is sent home with equipment that’s not completely fit for purpose.

Muir said the equipment team does their best to provide patients with the best option they can find, but if items were returned in a timely fashion then the next wave of patients would get the best possible items at the hospital’s disposal.

“What we would like to have is a flush stock of equipment so that people get the thing they need at the right time,” she said.

Enable New Zealand replenished the stock that doesn’t get returned, but that’s also a loan to the hospital.

Long term, Muir said each item that’s not returned needed to be replaced, which costs.

“I don’t think people keep this stuff purposefully, I think it’s a lot of out of sight, out of mind, I’ll deal with that later, and in the meantime we’re trying to keep issuing equipment out to people that come through the hospital.”

Muir said if people needed items longer than they were loaned out for then that can be accommodated, but the team needed to know who had what and where, to keep track of their inventory.

“We’re happy to provide equipment to people, it just needs to go down the right pathway.”

Muir acknowledged that some people may keep the items in case they get hurt again, or for friends and family who may need them.

“If you don’t need it then other people can make use of that equipment, and while you might hold on to it because maybe your neighbour down the road might need it, we know somebody that does.”

Muir said staff can collect items from people’s homes if that was required.