I'm no medical expert but common-sense tells you the stories about re-use of syringes in western Canadian healthcare institutions are very overblown and in all the press I've seen, only one complete explanation was made about what is really at (non-)issue:
1. The syringes are re-used ONLY injecting into IV tubes - NEVER into patients directly.
2. The NEEDLES are NEVER re-used - only the syringe bodies.
It would be a rare and huge malfunction of the whole IV setup that would propel a patient's blood backwards up the IV tube to the injection point, creating the potental for spreading of any blood-borne disease or infection, that would also have to travel up a (NEVER re-used) needle point, into a syringe, and be ignored by an idiot attendant. Possible? - yes. Likelihood? - miniscule, like never.
Anyone with common sense can see this practice would likely never cause a problem - there are no reports of this practice causing any problem - ANYWHERE.This is a tempest in a teapot and needs to simply go away. Perhaps a provincial or federal minister of health will have the good sense to speak to the people, give all the details, tell the whole truth and dispose of this non-scandalous non-story before it gets any larger.
Furthermore, it would be very interesting to learn the source of this story - who decided to make a name for themselves or who wanted a 'scoop' by breaking a big healthcare scandal story.
Healthcare has enough problems without having to fight its way through stupid media coverage like this.
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