Ahmedabad: Nineteen instruments worth Rs 10.2 lakh have been reported stolen from Gandhinagar Civil Hospital nearly three months after they went missing from the hospital’s sterilisation department. The delay has affected arthroscopy procedures at the hospital.A complaint was registered at Sector-7 police station on Tuesday by the resident medical officer (RMO) in charge, Dr Vipula Pandya, against an unidentified person. The orthopaedic department at the 600-bed Civil Hospital in Sector 12 used the equipment for arthroscopy procedures.Dr Pandya said more than 13 operations could not be performed as the required instruments were unavailable. The procedures have not resumed because no alternative arrangements for the equipment have been made.According to the FIR, a shoulder arthroscopy procedure was performed on June 12. After the surgery, staff packed 34 instruments, including 19 arthroscopy instruments, in a green biomedical waste bag for sterilisation. Around 7.50pm, two helpers took the bag to the fifth floor of the central sterile services department. As the technicians assigned to the night shift were not present, the bag was left near the autoclave room.On June 17, around 9am, when the instruments were required for another operation, hospital staff found them missing. The materials returned from the department included autoclave and linen drums, but the instruments sent for sterilisation were not found.The missing items include a motor drive unit with hand control, trocars, shaver blades, cutters, graspers, duckbill instruments, a light-source cable, a shaver handpiece, arthro- pierce and cannulas. Their combined value has been assessed at Rs 10.2 lakh.The hospital formed an internal committee to investigate the disappearance of the equipment. The committee prepared a preliminary report and, after concluding that the equipment had been stolen, the medical superintendent directed the RMO to lodge a police complaint.The FIR states that the instruments may have been removed by an unidentified person who entered the corridor behind Operation Theatres 1 and 2 on the fifth floor, near the autoclave room, between 7.50pm on June 12 and 9am on June 17.Sector-7 police are investigating who had access to the area during the five-day period and how the instruments were removed from the hospital premises.
