“A young woman stole a sharps box from Hackettstown Regional Medical Center and removed needles and medications from it, police said.

“On Aug 24 at about 4:53 am police were called to the hospital to investigate a theft. They found the suspect, Brittany Dill, 24, of Hackettstown in the parking lot. Under questioning, Dill admitted taking the box and removing the needles and medications, police said.

“Dill was searched and found to be in possession of eight bags of heroin, Suboxone, two vials of Lorazepam and one smoking pipe, police said.

http://www.nj.com/warrenreporter/index.ssf/2012/08/police_say_woman_stole_sharps.html

Sadly, these thefts continue to occur though it is now a far less frequent event than it used to be.

Used sharps bins are an obvious source for syringes and needles and may be targeted in areas where needle exchange schemes limit access to injection equipment of are seen to bring with them undue police attention.

Previously, it was understood that sharps bins, especially those from operating theatres and intensive therapy units,  were targeted largely for the powerful drugs that they would predictably contain. This problem has lessened now though the proper elimination of drug waste in prefilled syringes that might be better disposed to a suitable drug waste container that is designed to denature or render drugs irretrievable is still a problem. Regrettably, the use of segregated sharps bins for sharps containing significant drug residues – the larger volumes targeted by addicts – makes no difference to those intent on theft, save for the convenience of a colour-coding scheme that identifies those bins most likely to be rewarding!

The wider use of medicine disposal kits that will denature liquid drug residues, perhaps simply by adsorption onto a kitty-litter type matrix laced with Bitrex, is an obvious answer. Excess drug residues should never be flushed into a drain as had been common practice in the anaesthetic room had a profound adverse environmental effect and is not permitted.

A sealed sharps bin is no barrier to a determined addict wanting to gain access to its content. Waste security is therefor essential. Leaving clinical and related wastes in a far corner of the hospital car park or an unlocked and insecure waste compound, in Eurobins that are themselves unlocked, is simply not acceptable.