Responded to Mr. Nakamura's question, we investigated how the sharps containers were used in our hospital war with a infection control head nurse.
Basically, we have two kinds of box for infectious waste used. One is the puncture-resistant plastic box used as the sharps container, another is the cardboard box used as the non-sharps container. They are supplied free of charge by the waste-disposal company. We pay totally 380, 000 yen a month for waste disposal.
Fisrt of all, we investigated at the outpatient ward.
This（↓） is the big sharps container used only there.
Next, we checked inside the cardboard box there.
We found the infusion bottle and line discarded.
The head nurse was lifting them up.
We couldn't find butterfly needles because discarded after disconnecting the line.
There was a peripheral intravenous catheter in the cardboard box because the needle part was already discarded separately.
Next we went to the hospital wards.
It was the same situation.
We didn't find the used butterfly needles in the
This is the plastic box we used for the needles.
We can see the used bloody line with the butterfly needle inside the box.
We didn't cut the line by a scissors but removed the needles & bloody line from the connection.
This method enables us to discard safely the used needles and lines without using a scissor and making bulk trash.
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