Hollywood finds use for Hamilton hospitals' trove of vintage medical gear

A set designer needed a needle.

That simple request last year has turned a corner of the Juravinski hospital on the Mountaininto a movie set prop emporium full of obsolete hospital medical equipment for rent.

It started when a film company was shooting a scene with a drug addict. They needed a syringe. So they called up a Hamilton hospital to see if they could borrow one.

The request made it to the small team that manages patient equipment at Hamilton Health Sciences hospitals.

A year and a half later, the team whisks prop rental reps and set designers in and out, renting them patient beds, heart rate monitors, medical supplies, old pill bottles and linens.

'We can't give it away; we can't sell it'

The job falls to a couple of patient equipment managers, Jay Moffatt and Stewart McNeil, who manage the operation on the side when they're not dealing with other hospital equipment business.

There are rules governing the disposal of medical equipment owned by public hospitals. And even items that are disposable come with a cost to turf.

See the vintage medical gear a Hamilton hospital rents to movie/TV sets

7 years ago

Duration 0:34

See the vintage medical gear a Hamilton hospital rents to movie/TV sets

"We can't give it away; we can't sell it," Moffatt said. "So we basically rent it to movie sets, and try and gain some revenue from that."

They've rented equipment for use on more than a half-dozen shows, like Taken, Designated Survivor, and The Kennedys: After Camelot. Some of their clients are top secret.

Their boss, Michael Capuano, is the manager of biomedical technology for HHS, and he has encouraged Moffatt and McNeil to grow this movie rental side hustle into a way to offset hospital budget pressures.

"We're over-capacity. It's no secret," Capuano said. "It helps our bottom line, helps us reduce our budget."

Plus, it's kind of fun to watch TV and point out to your friendsthe piece of equipment you helped provide, they said.

'If it looks good, and it's garbage, we take it'

Capuano declined to disclose how much money the team has brought in from renting out hospital equipment. But Moffatt set a goal this year of earning $1,000 a week on rentals. Their biggest single-week rental has brought in $10,000 to the hospital.

And the clients say they like having the money they're spending going to help patients in a hospital, Moffatt said.

There is a line they won't cross. "I'm not going to take a bed from a patient," Moffatt said.

But sometimes they trawl the hallways, looking for usable goods that are one department's junk, and their treasure.

"If it looks good, and it's garbage, we take it," McNeil said.

They get mostly word-of-mouth calls "we need crutches," "we need a bed."

Recently, a client was looking for a bunch of pill bottles. The team called the pharmacy, but no one called them back. Soon an eagle-eyed janitor helped snag a box of bottles headed for the trash.

They rented out the box of bottles for $500 to the client who asked for it. And then, another client noticed it and rented it again.

'Resuscitation equipment to keep people alive on the set'

When a set designer or prop manager calls, the teamtours themthrough several rooms full of equipment. There are linens from every decade, old telephones, and machinery from bygone eras.

"Everything you need to simulate a surgery situation," Capuano says, spinning around an improvised storage room made to look like a patient room, filled with equipment from decades gone by.

"We have various types of monitoring and resuscitation equipment to keep people alive on the set: infusion pumps, patient monitoring that monitors ECG pressure," he says, gesturing to one of the gizmos.

He's not finished.

"SpO2 and so forth, non-invasive blood pressure, an old ventilator, defibrillator, ultrasound machine, tourniquet, here's a syringe pump we used for certain scenes."

The team hopes to keep building their operation next year.

"It offsets the budget from the hospital," Moffatt said. "Anything to help."

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca