The intensive care unit of a hospital represents its apex for the levels of hospital hygiene ethics. For instance, before they enter the intensive care unit, the hospital’s nursing staff is expected to undergo a rigorous hand-washing or hygiene routine. Their sleeves should be rolled up, exposing their bare arms as the clean in and out process is needed for completing every patient interaction. In several units of the ICU, the safety measures continue with the prohibition of foreign objects and jewelry that have high risks of contamination.
Medical disposal waste and its threats
Likewise, cell phones also attract a lot of attention with the compulsory disinfection before people enter wards. It is obvious that when it comes to all the aspects of the intensive care unit. It is assumed that there is always an increased focus on safety procedures. However, this is not always true as one aspect of the ICU is always overlooked: their medical waste disposal bins.
Companies specializing in medical disposal waste state it is very important for hospitals to lay emphasis on the above or else-
- Absence of safe disposal designs in the containers that dispose of sharps. This exposes the clinical staff and the patients of the hospital to the risks of these sharps.
- Medical waste carts and trolleys are generally wheeled from the dock where the loading takes place through the clinical spaces where they trail contaminants through the intensive infection control regions.
- The bins and trolleys contain reusable medical waste that stays uncleaned for many years at a time with permanent staining of fluid spills and blood.
- Wall casings that are rarely cleaned for the containers of sharps and have an accumulation of sharps that have been disposed of in the wrong manner with grime and dirt on them along with loose sharps in cabinets that are a risk to EVS or clinical staff.
- The open-top small kick bucket bins for medical waste beside the beds of the patient are vulnerable to overhang curtains that might lead to cross-contamination.
- Complete touch containers for medical waste that do not have a hands-free mechanism to act as a barrier physically to the risks of contamination.
- Disposable waste containers that are hazardous are wiped down post usage and later reused as clean containers inwards and hospital facilities without the correct decontamination guidelines and processes.
- Red bags and cardboard boxes are being deployed for the containment of the medical waste with assembly and manual hand-typing that exposes the healthcare workers to spills, punctures, and risks to cross-contamination.
- Reusable chemotherapy and containers with pharmaceutical waste with porous surfaces that do not go through extensive disinfection or a robotic washing process that kills bacterial and other microbial.
- The segregation practices are poor, and here both downstream and clinical staff are exposed to intense waste contamination that has been incorrectly disposed of in red or general trash bags.
Companies specializing in medical waste disposal state that hospitals and medical units should focus on sanitation and cleanliness. It is here that patients are housed and treated for infection control. Attention has to be given to extensive microbial details to prevent the transmission of disease.
