There are millions of glucose test lancets used daily, to test the blood sugar levels of individuals with diabetes. I use them daily.
They are used in hospitals – where several incidents have occurred of disease transmission caused by a careless, probably criminally irresponsible, failure to use a new needle or lancet for each patient and to sanitise the lancet holder between patients – and widely used in the community, by every patient with insulin-dependent diabetes and many others with Type II diabetes controlled by drugs and/or diet.
How to dispose of these lancets? In hospitals and other healthcare premises, it should be a straightforward issue of dropping them into a sharps bin immediately after use. At home, matters are less easy. We might hope that insulin-injecting diabetics have been given a sharps bin for their used needles and insulin pens, and the blood test lancets can be placed into these. For others, the change of a GP issuing a sharps bin alongside a blood testing kit are rather slim, if not impossible. And, of course, no straightforward procedure for disposal once a bin has been filled.
Four primary school children in Tasmania have cause a health scare after pricking each other with a needle from a glucose testing kit.
The children at a school in the Derwent Valley, northwest of Hobart, underwent infection tests as a precaution after the needlestick incident on 9 May. “The incident involved four primary school students who used one or more needles from a diabetic test kit to prick each other,” Tasmania’s acting director of public health Dr Mark Veitch said in a statement.
The risk is perhaps small, but not so small as to be discounted and these children will need follow-up over several months. The psychological impact, for the children and more so for their patents, cannot be overstated.
And kids will be kids. Strangely, a discarded needle can be in some way attractive and pierce inquisitive little fingers. That message must reach each and every user of hypodermic needles and blood testing lancets to ensure safe disposal at all times.
The most recent have occurred in Washington State, netting 420 pounds of medical waste during a four-hour take-back event organised by the Battle Ground Police Department [great name!] which included 267 pounds of controlled substances which will be shipped to the Drug Enforcement Administration for destruction.
We all use antimicrobial soaps. They are ubiquitous in every hospital, clinic and care home, and across the waste industries though in this latter sector getting workers to wash their hands properly and at a suitable frequency remains a challenge.
“London’s Evening Standard reports that medical (clinical) waste including syringes, blood-filled tubes and pig snouts is being dumped on the pavement by Harley Street firms.
It’s the bane of many waste treatment facilities. Blue spun (non-woven) polypropylene wrap often ties its way around the best of shredders causing many hold-ups and some equipment damage during shredding of autoclave floc, and in automated feed systems for autoclaves, augers, microwave and incinerator plant.
tly used sharps, can be found on the streets of London. But today’s news report from the BBC is of a placenta found by London dog walker – perhaps more likely found by the dog than the walker – on a footpath near Tooting Bec Athletics Track, south London.
NHS Shetland is launching an investigation after a Vidlin resident found a medical waste bag in the ditch near her home last week.
Litter officers are investigating how bottles of prescription medicines, unused syringes and packets of past-use-by-date pills have ended up in the North Island New Zealand Hutt River.
