Sharp Injury

All staff working with sharps has a duty of care to ensure that sharps are used safely and disposed of safely, in a way that will not place co-workers or patients at risk of receiving a sharp injury (Work Health and Safety Act, 2011, p 26). So what are sharps? Sharps are a medical term used to describe equipment with sharp points or edges that can puncture or cut skin. Examples of sharps include needles that are hollow and are used to inject medication in through the skin, syringes used to inject medication into the body or withdrawing fluid from the body, lancets, auto injectors such as insulin pens and infusion sets (Fda, 2015). Working with sharps poses a risk to the staff member as well as the patient. This is because an unintentional sharps injury, which causes a wound to the person where the sharp has punctured the skin and the possibility …show more content…
Each work place in health industry will have a policy on sharps and safe disposal, as an Infection Control Representative the Enrolled Nurse has the responsibility to educate and provide training to new and old staff on these policies. Information in the policy will include keeping the handling of sharps to a minimum, needles should not be recapped, bent or disconnected from syringes, and they should be disposed of intact into a sharps container immediately after use (Koutoukidis et al, 2013, p 376). That is once the sharp in question has been used it should not be placed on a trolley, bed or table but placed immediately into a Australian approved puncture proof container, these are normally yellow and are labelled as AS 4031 or AS/NZ 4261 (Koutoukidis et al, 2013, p 376). Ideally the location of the sharps container will be in close proximity, and on a flat surface to prevent tipping over, and should not be more than three quarters full as a further prevention to a sharps