I am glad you mentioned this specific issue surrounding medical waste and the disposal thereoff and i hope that Daedralansa readss it. This thread should in theory be a good one. I might veer of your topic a bit...
If we wanted to be treated as professionals, we should act accordingly. Lets take for example an Manual resuscitators (Ambubag), or a laryngeoscope (Providing you don't use the disposable type), how clean is clean?? The question you have to ask in order to answer it is: "will i use this piece of equipment on myself?", and this for anything between your vehicle's front bumper and rear bumper.
Yes, we are well aware that our operating environment is by no means sterile, but this does not stop us from being being clean and trying to prevent any posibility of cross infections or contamination, from patient to patient, practitioner to patient, and patient to practioner. Have you ever been pricked by sharp left lying aroung in some dark corner of the bus?? Let me tell you that wil have "brown undies" for some time to come. Now try to track the source patient, impossible.
We live and work in and around other people too. We need to take tem into consideration, as we are putting their health at risk. Ambo wash bays should equipped with the correct system to get rid of medical waiste and soiled linnen, allow for the runoff to be collected in septic tanks and the correct procedures should be followed when cleaing the ambo. Your department should have regulation on this for eg. if you have have transorted a confirmed Meningitis patient. Otherwise check with infection control. Note that there is a difference between clean, sanitised, and sterile, and the objective is to get as close as posible to having all three. In some of our hospitals we always joke and say that the bugs we got goining around in some of these hospitals go to the CSSD (Sterilising Dept.) for a summer holiday, but in some places i am convinced it is the truth, not a joke...
Where and how do you wash your uniform after a shift or a nasty call if it is soiled (even if it is not, your uniform will contain pathogens which is not visable to the naked eye)?? At least you should be: washing them seperate from normal civies, on a hotter than normal cycle, and use a strong detergent. You can pass on a bug to your OWN family which you carry on your unifrom, specialy kids who have not got a fully developed immune system.
As for waiste on scenes, yes there are ocasions where time is of the essence, then arrange for else to collect any "normal" waiste. leaving medical on scene is a no go. Never mix medical and soiled waiste with normal wiast, as there might be people at the normal waiste disposale site who is looking through the rubbish for a meal. To be clean, cost only some "elbow grease", soap and water. At the end of the day, prevention is far better than cure and that we live amungst other people.
