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CARACAS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Ricardo Silva does not want to cause panic but the academic hired by the Venezuelan government as a millennium bug sleuth says Y2K could turn medical equipment in some hospitals into potential killers.

Silva heads a team from Caracas's Simon Bolivar University contracted to hunt down medical devices not compatible with the Y2K fault in the country's more than 900 clinics.

While Venezuela has spent up to $1 billion to ensure that strategic sectors like oil, electricity, telecommunications and banking are 100 percent ready, the government admits failures of medical equipment could represent a risk for the country.

``From the point of view of evaluating and remedying faults we're very behind. We have done little, and that has only been in the last month,'' said an anxious Silva, seated at his desk in the San Juan de Dios hospital.

Equipment used to mix prescriptions, introduce drugs directly into a patient's blood or scan for disease could become deadly if the Y2K bug upsets their calibration, he said.

The bug snarls digital devices which rely on two-digit dates by confusing the year 2000 with 1900.

Silva's team has scoured many public hospitals serving Caracas's six-million inhabitants and hopes to get information from 90 percent of Venezuelan medical centres by mid December.

As in other areas, the under-funded state sector causes the most concern. Private clinics have taken their own precautions.

With both time and money in short supply, the government has developed a low-tech solution: a red warning sticker will be put on each machine identified as Y2K susceptible. The equipment will be removed from use by December 28.

``Even if we did nothing, problems here would not be as severe as in the United States,'' Silva said.

He estimated that only two percent of medical equipment in Venezuela was susceptible to the Y2K bug because of its age, compared with up to 20 percent in the United States.

After its oil-based economy collapsed in 1983 as the price of crude slid from the boom years of the late 1970s, Venezuela spent a lost decade floundering from recession to recession.

Public hospitals, like many depressed sectors, have struggled since to update technology. The average age of medical equipment in Venezuela is 18 years.

``Venezuela is a special case,'' Silva joked. ``You could say that we have been preparing for 18 years for the year 2000.''

HI-TECH PROBLEM, LOW-TECH SOLUTIONS

Tired of hearing their oil-dependent country described as under-developed, many of the 23 million Venezuelans are delighted their lack of hi-tech could prove an advantage.

Jose Alejandro Sanchez, director of the Mariposa water plant which supplies a third of Caracas, laughs at the thought of Y2K disruption.

``The only chip in this plant is here,'' he said, patting his biceps as he twisted a mechanical valve to increase water supply to the treatment tanks. Like many buildings in Venezuela, where electricity supply can be irregular, the plant has its own generator should power fail on January 1.

``In Venezuela, contingency is a way of life,'' Sanchez said. ``In the provinces, it's normal for the power to fail so for the lights to go out...would be nothing unusual.''

The key to a smooth changeover in Venezuela and throughout South America will be the electricity sector, said U.S. State Department Y2K expert Mary Heard.

Some of Venezuela's 12 state-run electricity firms are not advanced in preparations and there is a moderate risk of power cuts in rural areas, she said.

However, the government's latest Y2K report emphasised that the vast majority of the sector relies on mechanical equipment. The five largest electricity companies, which group 95 percent of Venezuela's generation and 90 percent of its subscribers, are completely ready, it said.

Given the age of much of Venezuela's infrastructure and the priority the government is giving to the problem, the U.S. State Department has lowered the country's classification to ``moderate'' from ``high'' risk.

CARIBBEAN COOL UNRUFFLED

Pre-Millennium Tension has definitely not gripped laid-back Venezuelans.

While a Central Bank report found that around 65 percent of them were aware of the millennium bug, only a small percent of those found it concerning, according to Gustavo Mendez, head of a Y2K presidential commission.

``People are not worried about the problem at a national level, they are concerned they could have problems themselves, with their personal (bank) accounts,'' he said.

The Banking Association said Venezuelans need not fear the Y2K bug would shrink their bank balances. However, the Central Bank is ready to increase the cash in circulation by up to 15 percent in case people do withdraw their savings, said Modesto Freites, the institution's Y2K expert.

``But we want to emphasise that people's money runs less risk in a bank than in their homes where there might be a robbery or a fire,'' he said.

Mendez, a trained psychologist, said the government was mounting an ``Awareness Campaign'' in the media to publicise Y2K. The authorities will also open a telephone attention centre to coordinate a nationwide response to any Y2K disruptions, he said.

``But don't expect to be able to get through with a call at midnight on the 31st,'' warned Giuseppe del Grosso, executive president of the commission.

The National telephone company CANTV says it foresees no disruptions, having spent $70 million and an estimated 400,000 man hours updating its equipment in the last two years. But it warns that large numbers of calls expected as the millennium dawns could cause bottlenecks for its 2.6 million clients.

``Everyone will be trying to call each other to say hello. That's just the nature of Venezuelans,'' del Grosso said.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited

-- Steve (hartsman@ticon.net), December 10, 1999

Answers

"From the point of view of evaluating and remedying faults we're very behind. We have done little, and that has only been in the last month".

Imagine how little we can do in the next 20 days!!!

-- counting down (the@days.now), December 10, 1999.