Notes From the field: Floored on sharps container location
Let’s play drop the clothespin into the bottle.
Those were my exact thoughts as I watched a physician as he dropped a needle and syringe into a small sharps container that was sitting on the floor.
I had just finished teaching an OSHA class and the physician asked if I would check out the sharps container in his office. When I went into his office I looked all over each wall, no sharps container. I thought maybe it was mounted on the wall behind the door. Wrong! It was on the floor, beside the door. Mistake #1.
I asked the physician just what technique he used to place the needle/syringes into this “floor mounted” sharps container. The physician was dropping non-safety needles into the sharps container. Mistake #2.
The injectable (controlled substance) medication was in the physicians un-locked desk drawer. Mistake #3.
I immediately moved the sharps container from the floor onto a table that was in the office. I told the physician to order safety needles for his injections.
When I asked why the medication was kept in his desk drawer he replied, “I don’t want anyone to steal it”.
We compromised by moving the medication to a drawer that could be kept locked.
Why was the physician giving injections in his office? Well, that question, isn’t on my “Mock OSHA Inspection Form”
NIOSH’s Selecting, Evaluating, and Using Sharps Disposal Containers lists locations to avoid when placing containers. Containers should be “within easy horizontal reach of the user” and not “subject to impact and dislodgement by pedestrian traffic,” making the floor a bad location. For more on details, see “Location, location, location: The keys for sharps disposal containers safety.”
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Kathy Rooker
Kathy Rooker is the safety officer and owner of Columbus Healthcare & Safety Consultants, Canal Winchester, OH (krookerchsc@gmail.com or 614-833-9092). Rooker has more than 35 years experience working in the healthcare field and currently provides OSHA and CLIA consulting and inspections for physician practices and conducts OSHA annual training seminars in and around Central Ohio. In her "Notes from the Field" posts, she shares real life OSHA compliance issues and offers solutions to these sometimes complicated situations.
Kathy has written 28 posts.
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