What are Needlestick Injuries

Needlestick injuries are wounds caused due to puncturing of the skin by medical needles such as hypodermic needles, blood collection needles, suture needles, and other such needles used for intravenous IV Catheter. These can be severely hazardous in medical and healthcare settings. Coming in contact with any contaminated needle may lead to exposure to the grave and potentially lethal pathogens containing blood. These injuries can expose one to serious healthcare issues due to the presence of pathogens in the contaminated blood, which may even be fatal infections. These are known to lead to transmission of over 20 bloodborne pathogens, out of which some may even lead to fatal infections such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The majority of these injuries involve healthcare workers, nurses, laboratory staff, physicians, etc. These may be caused due to accidental needle safety during the use of the mechanism. The injuries are generally associated with and result from acts like- disposing off of used needles and other materials used in the procedure, sudden movements of the patients during injection, recapping the needles, transferring fluids between containers, failure to dispose of used needles in puncture-proof safety boxes.

How can Injuries be Prevented?

Needlestick injuries need to be avoided to prevent the spread of any fatal infections and in such sensitive situations, prevention is better than cure. Thus all necessary steps should be taken by healthcare professionals to protect themselves and others from needlestick injuries.

In order to protect themselves and others in their vicinity, the healthcare workers can take a number of precautionary and preventive measures at their workplace:

1. They should use a safety IV Catheter as they have the maximum potential to prevent such injuries. Safety IV Catheter comes with a sharps injury protection feature and should be regulation compliant.
2. The needles should immediately put back into a sharp container in order to dispose.
3. Also, all healthcare workers or anyone who may in any way be exposed to these needles or blood should be tested for infections.
4. The handling and disposal process should be pre-planned and arranged by the professional before they use any needle; this could include having a safety box nearby while injecting the patient. This box should be held from the top, away from the needles, while carrying it around. The safety box should never be more than three-fourths filled with needles and should not be opened except at the time of proper and secure disposal.
5. Further, as employers, they must ensure the use of highly-engineered controls to reduce such injuries and also promote the use of safer alternatives to needles and devices with safety features. The ongoing practices should be assessed for any possible risks or dangers and should be modified accordingly.
6. Employees should be properly trained for the safe handling and disposal of needles in healthcare settings. Also, everyone should be informed of and trained in bloodborne pathogen spread and infection prevention practices. This is especially important for housekeeping and sanitation workers with no proper healthcare training.

Needlestick injuries are more common causes of the spread of pathogens and fatal infections and need to be nipped in the bud. The healthcare professionals at every step should ensure proper preventive methods, such as these above, are taken to protect everyone and anyone from such injuries.

Mediplus Approach Towards Needle Stick Injuries

At Mediplus India Limited our aim is to ensure fool-proof safety of persons in the healthcare field and anyone who comes in contact with needles and to prevent any needle injuries by providing regulatory compliant safe devices such as the Plusflon Safe, Pluscan Alpha Safe, Plusclip Safe, and Plusclip Alpha Safe. These highly engineered devices are produced by fully automatic manufacturing machines for higher precision and complete safety.

1. All the safety IV Cannula manufactured by Mediplus India Ltd. are having a passive safety mechanism that does not require any additional action to activate its safety system.
2. A safety system can not be bypassed.
3. Manufactured on a fully automatic machine with no human touch.

These are designed to avoid any kind of needlestick injuries through the safety features installed in these devices. These safety features cannot be bypassed and provide complete protection from any kind of mishappening or injuries.