92th day of attachment

My colleagues and i had to stay in bme department until 3 pm as there is a sparrowhawk exercise for today and tomorrow. We are advised not to go to the wards during the exercise unless the calls that we received are urgent. Before the exercise is carried out, jupiter masks from some departments are not working due to incorrect calibration done before in use. While the exercise carried out, i did most of in-house repair until 3 pm as we received a call from from Clinic C about their indirect opthalmoscopes not working as the batteries are faulty. After testing, the batteries and opthalmoscopes seems to be working. I believe that the batteries were not fully-charged before using the opthalmoscope.

91th day of attachment

An ECG recorder, Schiller AT-2 Plus which was brought down by my colleague and me from ward 3 a few days ago and I did mention that the fault is the printing keep stopping and it is not due to paper jam. I analyzed the fault by going to ward 1 where they have the identical Schiller ECG recorder with the paper feed from the faulty one. After exchanging the paper feed, ECG recorder which from ward 1 still able to generate the ECG. When I removed the paper feed, I found that the print head not came out of the printer. After I screwed back the print head into the printer, the paper still jam. Therefore, I took the service manual to seek any stated possible problems.

The problem was the catch on the printer paper tray has worn out and the springs exerting too much pressure that the paper tray lid either could not be pushed in or using more strength to push the tray back in. The problem was found with the help of my colleague. The tension is achieved with two springs exerting certain amount of pressure on the print head. Since the catch are worn out, the paper tray lid unable to closed tight as the springs keep pushing the worn-out catch away from the paper tray. The solution is to cut a bit of the spring on one of the side of the paper tray. The paper able to print 3 out of 6 waveforms as the the paper tray did not place nicely or the alignment of the print head is incorrect. Therefore, we tried slotted the paper tray lid tightly to the paper tray and the ECG recorder able to print the full 6 waveforms without patient informations or 4 waveforms with patient's informations.

My colleague and I tried to finish the preventive maintenance for the remaining equipments as we only have a week to complete the maintenance. Some of them are not located as the end-users may transfer to different wards.

In the afternoon, I helped out my administrative colleague to print out the work flow for tomorrow's exercise that were be carried out at 19 locations nationwide. Most of the Hospitals, some secondary schools, Changi Airport Terminal 2 and etc are involved for this exercise. Print-outs are given to 37 departments. Print-outs which contents about how to handle any suspected case.

90th day of attachment

I tried my best to repair the Terumo infusion pumps, STC-503 as they are with us since early june.

Firstly, before doing anything such as disassemble the pump, i took the service manual out to examine the fault which is having "Err 2" on the display. Actually, there are a lot of possibilities that caused this problem. The main problem is due to the malfunctioning of the HIC board as it consists of power supply circuit, motor rotation circuit and etc. Most of the controls is on the HIC board. Usually, we will just replaced the whole HIC boards. However, Terumo manufacturer no longer produce this model and the parts for it. Therefore, i just have to check and replace certain components on the board.

Secondly. after being guided through the troubleshooting flowchart, i found out that the connectors that are used to connect the two boards together seems to be faulty. There are still salvage HIC boards left to make sure whether they are still able to be used. I found out that one of them is still working but a fuse component is absent. I replaced the board with one of the pump and "Err 2" no longer displayed. Another problem arised for that pump which is unable to run on batteries due to absence of the fuse.

Thirdly, the another pump still displayed "Err 2" regardless of changing new HIC board. I using the DMM to test the continunity of the motor rotation circuit and no components from the circuit are not damaged. I replaced the fuse that was originally from the faulty board to the HIC board in the pump.

We returned most of the devices that are done for repair as the "returned" shelves no longer have any space for us to place those that we just repaired.

89th day of attchment

I continued doing the checking for the chemical agent monitor as there are still 2 more in the emergency planning room while waiting for the other one to finish doing the self–test as from what I have mentioned yesterday, it keep indicating “wait”. I turned two identical devices on to check whether it is normal for it to run for such a period of time. While it is running, I made used of the time to read through the operator’s manual.

Based on the manual, there seems to be one disadvantage of using CAM. You know that it is used to detect contamination through vapour and wind direction may affect the flow of toxic vapour. It only detects the vapour at the point where its nozzle has contact with. Therefore, the hazardous vapour will flow to the previously safe region due to any sudden change of wind direction. Before the usage, the CAM operator has to determine the wind direction in order to allow CAM to have accurate response.

There may have some interference agents that affect the CAM and give a false response.
The interference agents are:
Perfume or deodorant that we used may contain a bit of G mode agent which will cause a response if CAM is held close to our skin.
Smokes and fume such as breech fume from munitions while loading the bullets.
Cleaning agents which may contain methanol. Methanol is an additive used to give a pleasant smell such as orangey smell after being washed.

After letting it run for an hour or more, the device is ready for use. I believe that some devices required longer period of time to perform the self–test. After performing the confidence test, I found out that the indicator does not decrease within 2–5 seconds as what sated in the manual. According the manual, I have to remove the nozzle stand-off and let it run with the protective cap for 15 minutes. However, the meter indicator does not decrease further more from 4 bars.
A PCA pump, Graseby 3100, is sent by a pottering attendant and the problem with it is unable to switch off the device. After analyzing the fault and performing functional check, I concluded that the device is working fine.

In the afternoon, I finished checking all 4 of the CAM and found out that one of them not operating well. The schiller ECG recorder, AT-2 Plus, having the same problem as 4 days ago.

88th day of attachment

The final stage of checking the infrared ear thermometers is to clean them up with alcohol pads and double check with the temperature measurement. After doing that, I repair or replaced some devices such as the sphygnomomamometer, mattress pumps, MaxHealth HE-7500. One of them is due for preventive maintenance while the other air pressure is slow.

CAM (chemical Agent Monitor) is to detect any radioactive toxic vapour either on the person or vehicles. Once it detected that is a radioactive biological vapour on a person’s body, the person will be sent to decontamination room. Sometimes, certain countries will end up using biological weapons which making use of radioactive or toxic vapours. To prevent any further contamination to the people, this device is then to be used. It seems like a portable device in terms of weight. I did not know what it is used for initially as I have never seen it before. Reading through the service manual and hoping that I will have a better understanding of the operation and checking of the CAM. I tried to perform the confidence testing but I could not get any indication of contamination level. Therefore, I seek for Mr. Sin’s help by asking him about the confidence test. Based on the service manual, it has to run for at least an hour before any usage as it is quite some time since we last used it. Checking is required before and after lending devices to other hospitals. The device is lent to KK hospital but it was returned and told that it is not working. After it is being warmed up for 30 minutes, I tried again by placing the confidence sample in front of the nozzle for 1 second. The device indicates high vapor contamination and it is proved that it is working fine. Jets of air are being released through the nozzle. We have 4 of this device in Alexandra Hospital.

Based on the color of it, I think it is from the armed force. Green is a type of colour that is being used for camouflage in the field. After running two of these monitors, I found out that one of them seems not working as it take quite much longer to run self-test and unable to switch from G (nerve agent ) to H ( blister agent ) mode. The operator’s manual stated that I should notify my supervisor if I met with this problem.

ECG recorder from ward 2 was damaged and staff nurse notified us about how it is spoilt. Initially, there is nothing on the display though we switched it on. There is a floppy disk to allow the software to be run and was missing from the recorder so my colleague asked the staff nurse for the floppy disk to upload the software. After software being uploaded, the waveforms are shown on the display and perform the function test.