Why Are Disposable Medical Supplies Crucial?

With the population steadily increasing and the living spaces decreasing, the chances of infections and infectious diseases spreading are also on the high. Safeguarding yourself and your family from such infections is not very easy with children going to schools, you and your spouse going to office and meeting people, etc. Even though there is pretty much nothing you can do from others spreading these infections, the least you can do is protecting yourself from it. Disposable medical supplies are one such example of taking prevention against infections.

Hospitals are places where sick people are taken care of, treated and made healthy again. Ironically, hospitals are also places where infections can easily spread due to the presence of so many patients under one roof. And that is the reason there are so many infection preventive items stored there for protecting the patients and the staff. For persisting medical conditions such as diabetes, patients have to use syringes at home and such items are better used once and disposed.

Disposable medical supplies are of different types - some are meant to be used at home and some at hospitals. Some of the common items are syringes, gloves, masks, IV bags, thermometers, catheters, bags, etc. In other words, any item that has to be used on the body of the patients have to be separate and used only once and then be discarded so that if there is any infection in one patient, it does not spread to another.

Manufacturing of disposable medical supplies have to done with the best quality materials to ensure that they are safe for the patients to be used. Also, they have to be packed carefully and sealed since the patients would be using them on their body and any contact with germs or infected items have to be avoided.

Doctors, nurses and technicians in the laboratory have to take care that they use unopened and safely packed items each time they use it on each patient and dispose the items as soon as the use is over. It is the responsibility of the hospital to ensure that the staff uses only these disposable items on patients. And the responsibility of keeping oneself safe lies with the patients too. It is important that they insist on accepting only these disposable medical supplies for their use when they are in hospitals. While purchasing these products from the pharmacy, they need to ensure that they are buying sealed packets of medical supplies.

It is true that using disposable items is not exactly cheap. Initially it might appear to be expensive, but when it comes to your health it is definitely worth the cost as it ensures that you are protected from any infection or contamination and that you remain healthy always.

Some Facts on Medical Tourism

Owing to the fact that there are many health problems that people of different races want to get solved at a comparatively low risk as well as low cost, there has been an increasing migration of diseased individuals from their home countries to other parts of the world.

This practice has been popularly termed "medical tourism," otherwise known as health tourism or medical travel or global healthcare.

Health-Care Services Common to Medical Tourism

For one reason or the other, individuals travel across international borders to access health services that are available in their destination countries. Similarly, medical tourism could also be referred to as the practice whereby some physicians, doctors or health-care providers are itinerant travelers to different parts of the world to deliver health-care services to potential patients.

It is worthy of note that the health services that medical tourists commonly seek to have include dental surgery, joint (hip or knee) replacement surgeries, cosmetic surgeries, cardiac surgery, psychiatry, alternative treatments, in-vitro fertilization and freezing embryos for retro-production, and surrogate pregnancy.

Countries Associated with Medical Tourism

It is worth stating again that one of the major causes of medical tourism is the relative cost of undergoing a certain medical procedure. For instance, carrying out a liver transplant surgery costs about $250,000 in United States compared to that of Taiwan which costs about $90,000 USD. Another major reason is the lack of adequate health care facilities and services.

As a result, more of medical tourists come from places like Europe, the US, Canada, Japan and the Middle East. Health service providers from such countries stand the chances of losing billions of dollars revenue.

In the same vein, the countries where medical tourists usually consider for medical procedures include India, Jordan, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand, South Korea, Tunisia, Argentina, Israel, Ukraine, and New Zealand.

Potential Risk of Medical Tourism

It is quite vital for medical tourists to be well aware of the risks involved in seeking health care in some other countries. This will help to determine what could be done so as to minimize or eliminate the risk factors of medical tourism.

1. Low level of expertise of some health-care service providers. There have been cases where some even practice outside of their field. This is highly risky.
2. Low health-care standards. Some countries other than First World have low standards in the health sector.
3. Lack of proper Health Insurance Scheme in some Medical Procedures.
4. The possible risk of post-operation complications after tourists' return to home countries.
5. Lack of physical contact with the physician after medical care for essential medical check-up.

Factors Responsible for Medical tourism

1. High cost of health-care service. In fact, one of the major reason why medical tourist travel from First World countries to other places is as result of the high cost of health-care services.

2. Convenience and speed. In countries like US and UK unlike in some other countries, many health care services require long waiting times before the medical procedures are embarked on.

3. There is advanced medical technology in many countries today. Many countries are taking advantage of medical tourism by providing high standards of health care services.

4. Lack of local health-care services on certain medical problems. For instance, a medical tourist may seek help for in-vitro reproduction in a foreign country if it is not available in his own country.

From the foregoing, the views held by individuals about medical tourism are not the same at all. Some people from First World countries see it as a risky medical alternative. However, since many countries are now taking to advanced medical technology, some still consider that it is worth doing.