healthcare industry battling 'devastating' level of waste

[davidc4430]

Australia's healthcare industry battling 'devastating' level of waste, nurses and doctors say

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-13/war-on-waste-hospital-waste-australia-recycling/11306376

i saw this first hand when i took my sister in law to have her hand stiched up after she fell over once.

the local emergency room at the hospital a doctor stiched it and he arrived with a sealed package containing a selection of 'bandages, sicissors and tweezers ect' for doing minor operations like inserting a couple of stitches.

he only actually used a couple of items, but the whole lot was binned when he was finished.

the tweezers and scissors were stainless steel so i grabbed them.

all the unused banages and other bits n pieces were chucked.

including the dish they all came in.

obviously its deemed cheaper to do this than clean things for reuse.

[not_for_sale2024]

I once went for a stroll through the grounds of a rather large hospital where there was a fair amount of bush. On walking along the bush path about 50 metres in, I came upon a heap of dumped hospital waste about the size of a queen size bed. The waste included syringes, needles, swabs, gauze etc. Many of the items were bloodied. I immediately reported it and the hospital staff looked concerned and worried. They treated it as an emergency. My guess was that the driver who collected the waste for disposal dumped it in the bush, perhaps to get home early or something. Whatever, it was pretty bad and very dangerous.

[the4masters2013]

This has been going on for years.
I left the hospital system (to go into age care) in the early '90's and we were throwing reusable items out then.
If we even took a pair of clean scissors home (used only to cut a sterile bandage) we could have been fired for stealing.
A complete waste of good items.

[zanadoo_56]

I was amazed at the amount of packaged bandages and other items that ended up unused and thrown out. They must go through gazillions of those tiny clear cups to hold tablets as well.

I noticed that the last time I was in hospital (actually the hospital rehabilitation centre) that some cost cutting had taken place.  At a previous visit they allocated a particular foam cleanser to patients.  It was really good and when it became available to the public I bought some.  But in the hospital the last time not a container was to be seen.  It had been replaced with a much cheaper greasier cream product.

Patient gowns and towels regularly ran out before clean delivery day.  Sometimes sheets as well.  The less said about the tastless cheap and nasty (not to mention badly cooked or even just badly reheated) food the better.  If they are paying through the nose for that swill they are really being ripped off.

[*kazumi*]

Hospitals are also battling the golden staff and other MRSA infections.  Tey cannot risk to use open package on the next patient.   

[zanadoo_56]

But the wastage is not always open packages.  For example a nurse grabbs say four sealed packages of bandaging.  But in the end only needs three.  The fourth one, instead of being taken away, is left in a patient's room still sealed and unused....until it is eventually scooped up and thrown out.  From my experience it happens a lot.

[springyzone]

That's wasteful. If a pack has not been opened, then it should not be thrown away.

I have to say that if i were a patient, I would prefer a one-use needle, clean bandages and so on.

I was reading that a lot of infections are spread by staff because they don't rinse their hands properly between patients.

If that is already happening, it could be worse if you had eg a pair of scissors lying around, being handled by lots of different staff.

Maybe they need to add less to each pack, I don't know.

One thing I do think could be improved in hospitals is the habit of giving patients food and drink in little packs that have to be opened. I again was reading about this and for patients without much strength or limited limb mobility, this can mean they almost starve. A young woman who had both arms in plaster said she just could not open some packs and gave up the fight. Surely drinks could come in real cups. A dishwasher washes at a high temp and would kill most germs, or if someone is highly infectious, reserve the sealed disposable packs for them.

[*kazumi*]

I know somebody who had hip replacement and ended up with golden staff infection; they had to remove the new joint, and left her without joint for months (6-9 ?), while she was treated by high doses of very powerful drugs.  I imagine the golden staff can be transmitted on the outside of packages as well; I think that is why once the package is taken to one person, it cannot be given to another.  You do not always know people have it on their skin, unless they would swab every person they admit. 

Friend of mine was in charge of managing control of the antibiotic resistant bacteria in one large hospital, and they had to go into extraordinary length to bring it under control.