News | Sunday, 17 January 2010

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National Auditor questions medical equipment ‘loans’

Private clinics borrow €200,000 in medical equipment from Mater Dei; procedure lacks necessary documented assurances.

Matthew Vella
The Auditor General has questioned the validity of Mater Dei’s “frequent loaning-out” of medical equipment to private hospitals, who appear to be making requests for the same equipment, instead of purchasing it themselves.
According to its annual report, the National Audit Office says the “frequent loaning out of the same medical equipment to particular hospitals/clinics… seems to disprove the assertion made by health officials that medical equipment is loaned out only in emergencies” such as in the case of breakdowns or malfunction of equipment.
The NAO’s annual report featured in last week’s edition of Realtà on One TV, presented by Brian Hansford, which discussed various investigations carried out by the Auditor General.
In this case, the NAO had set out to determine whether the loaning out of Mater Dei’s equipment, 90% of which is mainly for the St Philip’s and St James private hospitals, was negatively affecting waiting lists at the state hospital.
The exercise was however fruitless, as the NAO said it was not in a position to correlate whether the loaning of some €200,000 in equipment led to longer waiting lists.
The NAO however said that even though the equipment loaned from Mater Dei – mainly tools for spinal surgeries and dental surgical packs – were relatively low value items, “these are nonetheless important to the medical and clinical services given by MDH, and collectively may comprise a substantial amount in terms of initial capital outlay.”
The NAO added that Mater Dei was not following its own protocol of examining written requests before authorising loans of medical equipment. Instead, the procedure was a simple “gentleman’s agreement” where the head of department verbally authorises the loan of equipment.
The report also found that if medical equipment gets damaged in the process, the costs would have to be shared by both Mater Dei and the loaning clinic.
The watchdog said the lack of written authorisation risked detracting from “the importance required that such loaning out does not negatively affect the provision of Mater Dei services.”
Without any ‘loaning protocol’, the NAO said there was a risk of uncertainty as to who actually authorises such loaning, and what action gets taken if the items are returned damaged. “The current procedure… lacks the necessary documented assurances that regular maintenance on equipment borrowed was properly carried out.”

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