A toddler who may have suffered a needlestick injury while playing in a medical centre, has been awarded €10,000. In September 2007, 18-month-old Callum Wynne and his brother had been in the Public Health Nurse’s Clinic at Ballyowen Medical Centre, Lucan, Co Dublin. While playing, Callum removed a defective lid from an overfilled “sharps” bin and touched used needles.

Ms McAuley told the Circuit Civil Court that tests for HIV and hepatitis were negative. A settlement offer of €10,000 had been made on behalf of the Health Service Executive, Dr James Lee and Primacare Ltd., Ballyowen Medical Centre, which Judge Matthew Deery approved.

http://www.herald.ie/news/toddlers-clinic-needle-scare-2834126.html

That’s a lot of money for an infection that did not occur, but there can be no doubt that this risk was substantial and there was, inevitably, a substantial anxiety and distress factor for the child and parents during teh day and months after the incident.

Such evernts are not unknown. Sharps bins left in locations that are accessible to children, on low left benches or on the floor, and of incorrectly assembled and overfilled sharps bins. I hope that HSE are now taking action against those who permitted such sloppy and unsafe practice.

There can never be any plausible excuse for an overflled sharps bin.

Improperly assembled sharps bins have several explanations. Bins manufactured from soft and flexible plastics have a simple lid that has a small carrying handle. If the strains on that handle are sufficient, especially if the lid has not been fully engaged during assembly, it can start to pull away from the body allowing access to little fingers or the risk of spillage of the contents.

Rigid bins of clamshel design have far stonger fittings holding the two components together and it is almost unknown that these can be dislodged once properly assembled. However, assembly can be quite difficult. If teh two parts are not brought together with care, and if force sufficient to engage the locking system is applied unevenly, then the lid will sit askew with every possibility of a gaping lid that can discharge the contents.

No amount of pushing or pulling can properly affix those lids, or remove them for repositionning. Who is responsible for this? Certainly it is the user, who must recognise the risk and reject this bin for another.

But the effort required to assemble a clamshell bin can be considerable and may defeat many end-users. So, are the manufacturers to blame? They say no, unsurprisingly, and for them it is an end-user responsibility. In discussions during ASTM sharps bin committee negotiations, this issue was discussed at lenght but resolutely voted down by the powerful manufacturing lobby. The same is likely to happen with other standards organisations.

The cost of even modest redesign of an injection molded product is considerable and that is, of course, a significant issue but safety cannot be set aside for this reason. To redesign the lid fittings to permit easier and more appropriate location of the two parts while allowing secure and robust assembly that meets or exceeds all required test parameters and neither gapes now comes apart when dropped should be a priority for the sharps bin manufacturers. Likewize, those manufacturing alernate products from softer and more pliant materials should ensure their lids are held firmly and remove the small