Have you seen this wheelchair?
It seems someone wanted to take it home with them from Hull Royal Infirmary but changed their mind and abandoned it.
Earlier this week, a photo of it was posted on the HU5 Facebook page and we’re now trying to track it down and get it back where it belongs.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a one-off incident. This week alone another of our wheelchairs was spotted after it was dumped in the city centre – and our teams are now trying to locate that one too.
And you can help. All our wheelchairs have the Portering team’s contact details on them, so if you spot one, please call them so we can come and pick it up.
Facilities Manager, Graham Taylor, said: “This is an ongoing problem for us and has a significant impact on our patients.
“Our wheelchairs are there for our patients who need them and every one that goes missing is one less for someone who needs help to get to a clinical appointment.
“We understand that people sometimes take a hospital wheelchair to the nearby car parks to help a relative or friend into a vehicle, but they are manufactured for the hospital environment and not designed for prolonged outdoor use or to leave our sites.
“When you come to hospital with an injury or a condition that means you’re not able to get around without a wheelchair, you want to know that they are here and available for you to use – not taken off site and abandoned in the street.
“Patients and visitors can help to ensure they are easy to find by bringing them back to the designated holding areas when they have been used, so they are clean, dry, and ready for the next person to use.
“We have considered using trolley-style coin slots to encourage people to bring them back but that means that patients would need to have cash on them to access them, which doesn’t seem fair either.”
When our hospital wheelchairs are taken off our site, this is something that we treat very seriously.
Graham added: “It’s really important to us that our wheelchairs are there when you need them so, if we do find one has been taken, the theft is reported to Humberside Police who work closely with our Security teams to identify those responsible.
“We also work closely with local scrap dealers, who will contact us if anyone attempts to sell them one of our chairs.
“We also really appreciate your help in letting us know if you see one of our chairs that’s been taken off the site. A quick phone call on the number on the back of the chair really does make a difference to getting these returned for our patients.”
