When you were at the doctor or in the dentist office, have you perchance noticed a small red container somewhere in the corner? Most people, when getting treated by medical professionals don’t even notice these small, rather uncharacteristic receptacles, or at least, if they do, they don’t pay much attention to them. However, your alarm should definitely sound off if you don’t notice these disposal containers when you are at a medical facility, as these are a very important medical waste disposal item and their absence can speak volumes of that health care facility’s medical waste management Jupiter, or rather, lack of same.
Every office where medical procedures are being done should have sanitary bins for safe medical waste disposal, no matter how simple or complicated the procedure is. Even if there is nothing more to the procedure than changing the patient’s bandage, a sanitary disposal bin should still be somewhere around and ready to receive the waste that goes in it.
Sanitary disposal bins are not in the doctor’s office for decoration or as a piece of furniture. Their role is much more important than that. These containers are, together with regular disinfection of often contaminated surfaces, the reason why hospitals and other health care facilities are not contaminated all the time with the pathogens that go through them on a regular basis.
You, as the patient, would certainly not be happy or satisfied to know that the medical institution you are going to get treatment or diagnosis from does not perform medical waste management operations in a proper way and medical waste disposal bins are definitely one of the most crucial items when it comes to MWM. However, you are not the only interested party here, as the doctors and other medical staff also don’t want to risk their own health just because someone “forgot” to do something as simple as putting a med waste container in the room.
Medical waste disposal containers are designed in such a way that, while the waste can be put inside without any problems, it can not be taken out.
So, in other words, medical waste disposal containers are unquestionably more than your ordinary trash can and, indeed even the waste that goes in one should never be placed in the other vessel. That means, if you haven’t figured it out yet, don’t mix medical waste with non-medical waste. Like, ever.
On occasion, however, as a patient, you will see that the doctor or nurse did not place the contaminated item directly in the medical waste disposal bin. Now, before you cause a ruckus and alarm every medical waste management government agency that you can think of, relax. The reason for this is that those items are going to be reused. So, instead of throwing them away, these items are put to the side and placed in an autoclave to make sure that they are sterile for when the next patient arrives.
So, the next time you are at your dentist’s or doctor’s take a look around his office and locate the Jupiter medical waste disposal bin. If there is one around, you can safely sit in the chair, but if there isn’t get out of there, fast.
