‘Forced to recycle, reuse single-use medical devices’

KUCHING: The country’s ‘chronically underfunded’ healthcare system has forced government hospitals to resort to recycling and reusing single-use medical devices on patients.

PKR Women national vice president Voon Shiak Ni said the matter is of serious concern for those who seek medical care at the government hospitals.

According to her, the Health Ministry needs to clarify whether the reuse of these single-use medical devices is regulated and controlled in the hospitals, and whether such practice has become a policy for the hospitals.

“The ministry can say that it is common practice in many hospitals to reprocess singleused items as some medical devices are very expensive.

“However, such practice must be checked and regulated to ensure that the reprocessed (sterilised) items are safe to be used as new ones, and that the patients will not be exposed to risks of infection or infectious diseases.

“Single-use means the medical device is meant to be used on one patient for a single procedure and then to be discarded and not intended to be reprocessed and used on another patient,” Voon told a press conference at her office here yesterday.

She pointed that there are enormous safety issues associated when reusing singleuse devices or reprocessing them to be used on another patient.

“Single-uses devices may not be designed to be reprocessed and the reprocessing system may not be able to disinfect or clean the reused devices totally from contamination,” she added.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, in commenting on the issue last week, said the reuse of certain consumables and single-use medical devices has long been practiced in the country, and has no correlation with health financing or budget.

He said the practice is the norm even in private health facilities in Malaysia as well as in the United States and European countries.

Dr Noor Hisham also mentioned that the Medical Device Authority, in a preliminary survey to look into the practice in private and public hospitals in Malaysia, found that 37 per cent of the 40 private hospitals surveyed reused and reprocessed singleuse devices.

Meanwhile, at the same press conference, state PKR secretary Nicholas Bawin Anggat urged the state government to expedite the amendment of the Land Code as no definite time frame was provided.

Bawin also said the peaceful rally of Native Customary Rights land owners at the Federal Court in Putrajaya will proceed on Nov 7, adding the organiser has obtained the approval from the police.