FEATURE ARTICLES
CLINICAL ENGINEERING:
HOW BIOMEDS MAKE HOSPITALS SAFER By Michael Brown
The city of Christchurch is located on a broad plain, geographically located between the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Locals sometimes brag that it is one of the few places in the world where you can go skiing and surfing on the same day. Based on an agricultural economy, it is a city with a growing population, currently at just under 400,000 people.
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s many of you may know, Christchurch has been through some significant events in the last few years.
Of most relevance to us today was a 6.2 Richter scale earthquake that occurred on 22 February 2011. 185 people died as a result of the earthquake, and the face of the city was changed forever. I must confess that when putting this talk together, I was going to show some slides of Christchurch right after the earthquakes, but whilst there was no shortage of images to display, looking at them now, even 8 years later, is something I struggle to do. This photo is of the National Earthquake Monument, constructed to remember those killed by the earthquake. I was personally fortunate not to be harmed as a consequence of the quake and aftershocks that followed. My family were safe and my home sustained very minor damage. However, no one living in Christchurch was left unaffected by the earthquakes. The thing that probably affected me personally in the greatest way were changes at my place of work, Christchurch Public Hospital. I can recall as clearly as yesterday walking to work several weeks after the main earthquake, and two minutes before arriving at my workshop, receiving a call on my mobile. It was my supervisor, who, in his casual, laid back manner instructed me not to enter our work building. When I enquired as to why not, his jocular but accurate reply was ‘because the roof might fall on you’. We were quickly moved to a new work area, significantly smaller than our original workshop.
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Since the quakes, living in Christchurch has been a struggle. Constant roadworks, building repairs and staff relocations have been frustrating at best. There were times when the traffic routes across the city would change on a daily basis due to roadworks; sometimes when visiting medical centres as part of my work duties, I would not be able to take the same route across the city twice in as many days as routes changed. Hospitals and medical centres have moved, rebuilt or shut, and the staff I work with have been relocated as many as four times, to list just a few frustrations. And, of course, the city itself was stuffed, or to use the colloquial phrase of the day, Munted.
Christchurch Hospital
