20 hospital operations saved from cancellation

The challenge

A large private hospital called Dura Pump at 2.30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon with a critical emergency of its own. A failed heating pump meant that 20 operations due to be carried out the next day would have to be cancelled if a solution was not found immediately. Not only could this be harmful to patient health and wellbeing, but it would also cause a significant loss of income and customer dissatisfaction.

Although the private group is one of our customers, we had never worked at this particular building before, and had no prior knowledge of the pump’s actual function, nor did we have any kind of maintenance history.

Our solution

By 4 p.m. on the same day, a Dura Pump engineer was on site examining the failure. The potential complications and knock-on effects could have been very serious had it not been for his grasp of the situation, his knowledge and quick thinking, and his excellent relationship with the company supplying the inverter which he could quickly see would be needed.

The replacement inverter had been dispatched by 5 p.m, and by 7 p.m our engineer had begun the installation. He had it completed, the unit programmed, tested and commissioned by 9.30 p.m. and everything was back to normal.

The results

All 20 operations went ahead smoothly and patients were none the wiser that there had been any risk. The hospital was delighted and much relieved.