Medicine is your best friend whenever you or your loved ones have a health problem. A person with a disease may take a prescribed medicine regularly in order to maintain their health.
As for healthy people who become sick, they will probably only finish several medicines that the doctors require them to. So, how about the rest of the medicines? They will usually be kept inside the first aid kit box.
Clinical Waste Management Steps
Do you properly store your medicines away from sunlight or moisture? If you do, then you may prolong the effectiveness and potency of the particular medicine and it is a good thing.
However, do you know that all medicines have their own expiry date? So what commonly happens is that the person forgets about the expiry date and later on consumes the expired medicine and that’s why clinical waste management is important.
You probably do not know this, but there are some people who would consume expired medicines instead of buying new ones just because they want to save some money.
You may think that taking expired medicines is very harmful, but it is not what you think. It is stated by medical authorities that the effectiveness of the medicine may decrease, but it is still safe to take even after years of expiry.
It could however harm you in a sense that the medicine is not as effective as before, hence it would not cure your sickness. Thus, in order to avoid this situation from happening, you need to buy a new medicine.
When you purchase or receive new medicines, what should you do with the expired ones? You should dispose of it in the correct way, but how is the correct way to do it? Let’s find out the 4 easy steps you should take for clinical waste management.
1. Check All Your Medicines
This probably comes as a shock to you if you did not even once check your first aid kit box or your medicines because you may find more expired medicines than you think.
Any presence of expired medicines or damaged medical equipment that you have should be disposed of. It is important to have medicine or medical equipment that you can use when you need it.
2. Segregate The Types
Once you have already identified all the expired or damaged medicines and equipment, Segregate the medicine according to their form, ie tablet/capsule, liquid, cream/ointment, or injectables and disposable item.
For tablet and capsule which are originally in blister, you should take them out from the blister and mix them together. This is to ensure that they are not being reuse or re-sell by others. For syrup and lotion, you may empty the bottle by flushing them into the toilet.
Please keep all sharp disposable like scalpel, razor or syringe in a safe container to prevent any unwanted incident and don’t forget to label them properly
3. Deliver To A Registered Medical Company (medical waste disposal Malaysia)
In Malaysia, you may send your expired medicine to government clinics or pharmacy counter in hospital. They will help you to dispose your expired medicine at no cost.
However, for clinical waste management from industry, you will need to send them to company who are authorized to do disposal of clinical waste management by Department of Environment or their agent.
Those are the 4 steps that you should take for clinical waste management. If you do not know any registered medical company to do proper clinical waste management, you should look no further and click on this link or WhatsApp us for more.
