Home-use medical sharps need proper disposal procedures

SOME DIABETES PATIENTS inject insulin themselves at home. How do they dispose of their medical waste? Gmw.cn comments:

In order to save time and energy, some diabetes patients inject insulin themselves at home or collect blood to monitor their own blood sugar level. These are allowed and it is easy to buy the necessary equipment and get the simple training required.

However, there is one problem: What happens to the syringes and needles after they are used? In hospitals, medical waste is collected in special garbage cans and processed apart from other garbage to avoid contamination. However, most diabetics do not have medical waste containers in their homes and it is very rare for the patients to package them up and send them to hospitals for professional disposal.

Needless to say, the majority of the home-produced medical waste is thrown into ordinary garbage cans and mixed with other household garbage, which poses potential threats to public health because some bacteria or virus might breed in the garbage and spread to other people.

Especially, street cleaners and garbage recyclers are at risk of being injured or infected.

According to the law, all medical waste must be collected in special garbage cans and professionally processed. The majority of the hospitals strictly follow that clause, but the big loophole of medical waste outside hospitals calls for further measures.

One of the possible solutions lies in hospitals. It is advisable for medical institutions to give syringes and needles to patients for free if the latter hand in their used ones in exchange. In this way, the patients are encouraged to hand in their used devices, while the hospitals get the convenience of collecting them.

Some hospitals have already been pioneering this practice. The legislature should consider making this a law, so that other hospitals follow suit.