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.
Ireland has not been backward at making the most of EU laws and subsidies though it has now found itself in deep financial peril as a consequence.
“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.
Not for sharps users, the clinicians, nurses and scientists who might wield a syringe and needle to draw blood or administer an injection, but for those working as ancillary and support staff, and waste handlers, who might be exposed to used sharps as they pass along the disposal chain.
Sharps incidents and sharps injuries to waste handlers have reduced only where mechanisation and bulk handling of carts, as opposed to manual handling of individual clinical waste bags and sharps bins, reduces opportunity for direct contact. Even where this has been possible, waste containers are still managed by hand as they are removed from wards and clinics, generally by cleaners and other ancillary workers who might have access to latex gloves or a pair of Marigolds but who will never have the benefit of sharps-safe gloves.
