The picture on your left was found in the newsroom of Siemens minus any press release. It was just accompanied with a few lines:

Sponges for an operation are equipped with RFID chips. They are then read by a stationary RFID.

It is being said that Siemens has been equipping surgical sponges with RFID tags. After the operation they can be read by stationary RFID. If they are doing this it is good because there is always a chance that a doctor might forget them inside the body of his patient during the operation and their Retrieval might become difficult later on in case they are left inside the body.

Via rawfeed