By Eugenia Dickerson


Medical supply plays a primary role in a safe and effective health environment. Other than the safety and faster healing for patients, they also protect the health workers from catching infections and getting injured in their work environment. For this reason therefore, such essential supplies must be carefully selected for the health environment to remain safe.

While the primary target is always to improve the health status of the patient and safety of the health providers, complete opposite can sometimes happen. They can sometimes be the source of threat in health sector as a result of defectiveness or mishandling.

It is not surprising therefore that too much consideration is put in place when ordering items in this category of utilities. All the players from the manufacturers, suppliers, transporters, storage and eventual users put in effort for the maximum safety of these utilities.

While the hospitals and other health providers might put in place all the necessary steps to ensure that their environment and treatment procedures are completely secure, the efforts are sometimes in vain particularly if the utilizes supplied to them are defective or are below the required standards. The storage procedures must also be effective as most of these materials are highly sensitive to environmental conditions such light, moisture, temperature and even pressure.

One major effect of using ineffective utilities in the medical field is the health acquired conditions. This consists of injuries, ailments or infections that a patient acquires when in the process of seeking treatment. In most cases, they are not related to the primary ailment that brought the patient in that health facility. When a patient falls and break a bone in healthcare facility for instance for any reason, it becomes a health acquired condition.

Such infections and injuries are not limited to the patients only, healthcare providers and their support staff too becomes victims when using defective utilities. There are reports where physicians get injured and sometimes infected with life threatening diseases when administering treatment. The cleaners too handle sharp objects and other infected materials.

The protective devices that are mostly employed include disinfectants, gloves, protective coats and sometimes masks. The technology has however improved the situation as it is now possible to examine the effectiveness of most of these utilities before they are brought to the actual use. Most utilities and other equipment can always be monitored in terms of performance and the corrective measures taken before the situation deteriorates.

The success of the health sector however lies in the continuous provision of effective and efficient medical supply equipment and other utilities. The success of these requires effort from all the players in the industry from the manufacturers, suppliers, distributors to store keepers and the actual users. All must put in necessary measures to provide safe utilities and sacrifice profits for ethics as these utilities means life. The government through laws and regulations must also play their part effectively in protecting the life and health of their citizens.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment

top