6-month wait for sharps bin collection

A diabetic lady in York has complained about the requirement to store her filled sharps bins for at least 6 months before collection.

The Local Authority make no promise, according to their web pages, as to service standards, though do certainly not say that it will be that bad!

Complaining that she cannot even take them to the community refuse site, she understandably moans about this poor service. But if she would be happy to take them to a waste site for safe disposal, why not back to her GP, pharmacy of hospital diabetic clinic if that is how her healthcare is managed.

Clearly, this is all about money, though for York it could simply be incompetence but money is most likely. So too will funding issues impact on the willingness of GP, pharmacy and hospital to accept filled sharps bins.

In the middle of it all, the patient is inconvenienced. Let us hope that York does better when retrieving discarded sharps and related drug waste, soft healthcare wastes from domiciliary patients, and incontinence waste from the housebound and infirm.

 

 

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