Strange Socket In Hospital

[SUNRAY]

WAS there a 13 amp unfused plug?

Oh yes and available for use under license and the license covered only one serial numbered assembly. I held 2 for a while for stage lighting use.
I imagine a different version covered medical use as they didn't have an identical assembly on their systems.

My experience of portable Xray machines is very dated but then they simply used the BS546 which was also widely used in theatres and farms. To a lesser extent also for domestic cookers and coppers.

I suspect the label originally had one beside a 15A versionwhich would have been a relatively common situation on each ward.

 

[SUNRAY]

I'm a radiographer. Our portable xray machines all run off internal batteries, which can be charged from any 13a socket. The high kV mA is all provided by the batteries, doesn't need to be plugged in to expose.

Oh yes they are now but 60 years ago (when I broke my leg in a car accident) I saw the machine so ably described by John used on a daily basis on neighbouring patients in traction. As a 9 year old I assumed the thick rubber snake uncoiled from the side and casually trailed across the ward was a hose pipe. My father informed me otherwise. However from the vantage point of my bed I was unable to see where it was routed to.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Oh yes they are now but 60 years ago (when I broke my leg in a car accident) I saw the machine so ably described by John used on a daily basis on neighbouring patients in traction. As a 9 year old I assumed the thick rubber snake uncoiled from the side and casually trailed across the ward was a hose pipe. My father informed me otherwise. However from the vantage point of my bed I was unable to see where it was routed to.

Reporting dizziness, when looking up, I was sent for a neck X-ray a few weeks ago, my first in many decades. It all looked very high-tech. The diagnosis was seized joints in my upper spine, the solution 'don't look up'.

As a teen, I fractured my arm. I remember them using some sort of high-voltage, or high frequency gizzmo, on the arm, to promote healing.

 

[JohnW2]

My experience of portable Xray machines is very dated but then they simply used the BS546 which was also widely used in theatres and farms.

My experience, mainly from the 70s and 80s, is also very dated, but my recollection is that the end of those fat cables wound on drums on the side of the machines had very large, essentially 'round', plugs (with appropriate sockets scattered everywhere throughout hospitals). They may possibly have been 30A BS546s (fairly rare animals, I think) but might well have been something else.

 

[crystal ball]

I had an X Ray this morning, stationary machine, was in and out in three minutes

 

[JohnW2]

I had an X Ray this morning, stationary machine, was in and out in three minutes

I would suspect, but do not know for sure, that the modern machines require appreciably smaller exposures (hence less human exposure to X-rays) than did those of old - since I imagine that the digital sensors now used are a lot more sensistivethat were the photographic films of old.

.... and, of course, the move to digital images (i.e. loss of the the 'photographic' aspects) has presumably resulted in very appreciable reduction in ('running') costs (although that might be offset by much-more-expensive machines!). Although the silver was eventually recovered from the films, mitigating some of the cost, they were usually stored for decades (I think often for at least as long as the patient remained alive) before being re-cycled.

 

[SUNRAY]

I had an X Ray this morning, stationary machine, was in and out in three minutes

Almost a bit scary how quick it is now, back in 1960s it would take several minutes to set the positon of patient and machine, insert film cartridge, take cover. Then sit back in the waiting room for film to be developed then a doctor to find time to check it. Half hour at least. I took my grandson several times and took a book, not even enoughtime to turn over the page... oh and the detail now

 

[JohnW2]

Almost a bit scary how quick it is now, back in 1960s it would take several minutes to set the positon of patient and machine, insert film cartridge, take cover. Then sit back in the waiting room for film to be developed then a doctor to find time to check it. Half hour at least. ....

Indeed - and, today, by the time you've managed to get back into your chair in the waiting room, a doctor in, say, Australia could already have studied the image and communicated his findings/opinion back to UK.

Times have changed

Of course, another 'change' is that it may now well take "6 months" to get an appointment for the X-ray, if it is not one which needs to be done immediately

 

[crystal ball]

This was a routine follow up to hip replacements ten years ago, phoned for the appointment about two weeks previous

 

[JohnW2]

This was a routine follow up to hip replacements ten years ago, phoned for the appointment about two weeks previous

Maybe you have a 'good postcode'

 

[crystal ball]

The hospital is 75 miles away, no problem getting X Rays locally our local health centre has a fully equipped X Ray facility, must be two good postcodes. Don't ask me about dentists though

 

[JBR]

I'm a radiographer. Our portable xray machines all run off internal batteries, which can be charged from any 13a socket. The high kV mA is all provided by the batteries, doesn't need to be plugged in to expose.

I was, in the olden days. Our mobiles (some called them portable, but I'm damned if I could pick one up!), were 'Deans', great solid things, had enormous circular three pin plugs which had to be plugged in for the things to work. Later during my tenure, we received a couple of more modern ones (white rather than the grey metallic colour) called 'AMX', which as someone has already mentioned were powered by built-in batteries and capacitors for exposures, though needed to plug in a small, modern 3-pin plug to charge up between uses. There were also a couple of absolutely ancient machines which didn't even have light-beam collimators, so it was occasionally possible to fail to include all the area of interest, receiving a consequent *******ing.
Ah, those were the days!

 

[JohnW2]

.... great solid things, had enormous circular three pin plugs which had to be plugged in for the things to work.

Them would probably be the plugs I've been trying to describe Any idea what they were?

 

[ebee]

Anyway, prior to X Rays they needed to open you up to have a good look inside.
Be thankful things often progress with the technology of the day!

These days we lot have a whole plethora of interesting diseases and conditions that we never used to concern ourselves about. The cavemen had such a happy life in comparison

 

[FrodoOne]

Saw this in my local hospital and wondered...

How...?
Why...?

Is it a special socket with two separate feeds?

View attachment 372142

There has been much discussion on this site concerning the original Post.
Have another look at the photo.

These pair of Socket-Outlets seem to be near the Floor.
The sign has been partially "painted over".
There is obvious dust/dirt on the "ledge" below it
and
there does not seem to be a curved "coving" between the vertical wall surface and the horizontal floor surface,
to assist with any "cleaning procedures" - which may not have been carried out with any regularity!

If this is located in a Treatment Ward, I would have some concern in attending any such a "Hospital".

In the very few occasions in my adult life where I have required hospital treatment,
I have never seen a Wall/Floor junction with square "corners", such as this, in any "Treatment Area",
and
I have never detected such "grime" and "poor maintenance".

I really do hope that this is just in some type of a "clinic" - as an adjunct to a hospital.