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Medical care workers (and this goes for those in the United States as well as anywhere else in the world) have two main priorities. One is the welfare of their patients, namely, making them better with treatment and medicine, and the other is the safety of their patients. Well, this priority number two is what we are really interested if we are to talk about medical waste management Sunrise.
Bio-hazardous waste disposal is regulated by federal and state laws in the U.S. and be several government agencies. When it comes to the employee safety at their workplace, this is where OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) play a major role in keeping the health care workers here in the United States safe from work-related injuries.
For medical workers, one of the biggest threats comes from the sharps waste. Needles, scalpels and other medical instruments used in treating patients regularly get in contact with blood from a patient. If this patient came to the hospital or clinic already carrying a blood-borne virus, such as Hepatitis type C or even HIV, and the instrument is not immediately removed like the bio-hazardous waste disposal regulations say it should be, then the following patient receiving treatment with the same needle can get infected. Of course, the chances of you actually receiving an sanitized needle in a U.S clinic are very slim (if we are not talking about really shady facilities), but the chance that this happens do exist.
On the other hand, the chances of someone from medical staff, like a doctor or a nurse, getting incidentally stuck with an infected needle are much more likely and need to be addressed through certain OSHA guidelines.
Use of Sharps Containers
OSHA demands that every facility working with needles for medical purposes must use sharps containers for their disposal. This is the chef medical waste management requirement when handling sharps waste. This organization also necessitates the use of only disposable sharps containers, unlike those that are reusable or recyclable. The container, furthermore, according to OSHA, should be resistant to puncture, leak proof, closable and labeled properly.
Sharps Bio-Hazardous Waste Disposal
Another stipulation from OSHA is that sharps have to be dealt with immediately after they are used. That means placing them in the sharps container right after use. There should be a person designated for this job (for instance, this could be a surgical assistant) and he should also receive some medical waste management education and training beforehand.
Recording and Reporting Accidents
All accidents related to sharps need to be recorded, according to OSHA. Recording such accidents includes providing all the info regarding the incident (place, time, what happened), OSHA provides a special log form for this that should be used in such circumstances. The injured person’s name need not be mentioned in the report, however.
Preventing Injuries
The whole idea of good bio-hazardous waste disposal is to do it in a way that prevents injuries and other hazards. A health care facility must have clear Sunrise medical waste management rules to prevent any sort of waste related injury, including, of course, those connected with sharps waste.
