Disposable instrument issue affects lots of doctors too

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2277

Published 28 October 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2277
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2277

Letters

Risk reduction policy costs the environment dear

Disposable instrument issue affects lots of doctors too

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The letter from Hotchkiss brings up an important point[1]—butit doesn’t apply only to chiropodists. I am a GP minorsurgeon with 20 years of experience using my own autoclave andwith an extremely low rate of postoperative infection—likemost GPs. Recently I have been forced by my primary care trustto use poor quality steel surgical instruments that are disposedof after each operation. There is an appalling degree of wasteand environmental damage entailed in their manufacture in Pakistan,transport to England, and disposal. This is intended to reducethe risk to my patients of hepatitis and possibly Creutzfeld-Jakobdisease—although the incidence of the latter is vanishinglylow. However, there is no evidence that GP minor surgery hascaused significant infections. Meanwhile, dentists, barbers,and beauty salons continue to use non-disposable instruments.This naive GP thought that a public health consultant wouldbe able to knock some common . . . [Full text of this article]