Passing gas. 10/16/2004
We’re in the midst of cross connection testing for the gas outlets in the pendants. If you don’t know what that means, pay attention.
In a typical installation, there are four main gases provided for the use of the medical staff. Oxygen, called O2, Medical Air at 4 bar pressure, called MA4, Surgical Air at 7 bar pressure, called SA7, and Nitrous Oxide, called N2O, and commonly referred to as laughing gas. In addition to this, Vacuum, called VAC, and Anaesthetic Gas Scavenging, called AGSS, is also provided for medical use.
Not many people know this, but medical gases are a prescription drug. That’s right kids, you need a proper prescription filled out by a medically qualified person to ingest said gases. Big deal you say, people breathe oxygen every day. Which is where you are wrong. You breathe air. Oxygen therapy is something else, commonly used in the treatment of burns under hyperbaric conditions. The gases are also 100% contaminant and oil free, and dry to boot. All this requires specialised machinery to provide.
Coming back to the cross connection testing. Since we have a plethora of pipes coming out of the ceiling, and into various pendants, we need to individually test each outlet and pipe to ensure it is correctly connected back to the Area Valve Service Units (AVSUs) and thence back to the medical gas plant. Which is extremely tedious, when you have outlets, numbering some 3 thousand individual units, spread across 9 floors of facility. And I have visited each, and every one of them, and gave them my best wishes. I think we might be finished sometime around Hogmanay.
- Posted in : Work Bitching
- Author : thesnark
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