Name/TitleEquipment: Pneumatic Carrier Tube
About this objectPneumatic Carrier System - Tube. The system was primarily used to send scripts down to pharmacy and x-ray requests to radiology. Ward to ward communication was also possible.
In each ward there was a directory kept near the tube collection area. On the tube there is the "Home Station Number" in this case it is DT7. Above that are movable (by twisting) numbers and letters, used to send to the destination.
The pneumatic tube system was in use in the North and East Wings from 1969. Early on, the system was not overly efficient, with it breaking down regularly. Pharmacy staff arrived at 8am and people would send tubes before they arrived and system often overloaded. Sometimes there would be up to eighty carriers backed up all the way to the sorting conveyor. If the flap of the carrier wasn't properly closed the paper would end up in the vacuum fan. Blood products could not successfully travel in the system, due to jolting, which was destructive to the specimen.
Elizabeth Sloggett (Royal Adelaide Hospital Oral History), a second year student "I remember I did night duty every Christmas and New Year, and one year, nigh time New Years Eve, and it was forty two degrees, and we were sending everything through the pneumatic tube - pavlovas, 50ml. syringes with a bit of bubbly, prawns, all sorts of things. And the tubes came to a screaming halt at about one o'clock in the morning, and they didn't free them up until about 11 o'clock the next day. I remember this very angry note from Miss Spry 'The pneumatic tube system is NOT to be used for anything other than ---' Because I can imagine the poor maintenance guys freeing this prawn that had been in 40 degree heat! I think that it was just one of those stoppages that occurred regularly, but because we had food transported in it, they made an issue of it."
Date MadeCa 1970
Medium and MaterialsBrass, leather, wooden laminate, rubber, material, metal
MeasurementsH38 x D9cm
Object TypeEquipment
Object numberAR#5907
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved