PATIENTS are being urged to save cash by returning medical equipment anonymously during an amnesty at Leighton Hospital in Crewe.
The hospital lends out everything from wheelchairs to breathing nebulisers worth £100 each, and failure to return them is costing it thousands of pounds each year.
Hospital chiefs fear some of the 60 missing nebulisers loaned to patients may have been sold at car boot sales and on the Internet.
The amnesty runs until the end of next month and health chiefs hope most of the nebulisers will be returned.
A Leighton Hospital spokesman said: 'It is usually people who have just forgotten to return items. I would say the percentage who take equipment to sell on is very small, but it does happen.
'Obviously we appreciate that some people cannot afford to buy one of their own and we understand that. But there are many people who just have not brought them back.
'We are aware nebulisers can turn up for sale on the Internet and at car boot sales, though I am not saying they are necessarily ours.
'But we urge people to bring them back, and can assure them that no questions will be asked.'
Ward Two deals with chest infections and manager Karol Stevenson said: 'Over the winter period we get a greater demand for these portable nebulisers. We urgently need the loaned units back, so we can get them serviced and issued to new patients.'
The nebulisers, known as Porta-Nebs, are used at home by patients who have been in Leighton Hospital with breathing difficulties. They come in a case about the size of a small shoebox and contain a small electric compressor. Air is pushed down a tube into a capsule of medication, which creates a gas that is inhaled by the user and opens their airways. Anyone wishing to return equipment, including walking sticks, walking frames, wheelchairs and crutches, can take them to the main desk at the hospital.
