We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Mark Hedberg — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 07:49:18 GMT

Yes, Nitrous would come from a separate source with a separate flowmeter, so it doesn't interfere with the oxygen from the oxygen concentrator. No problem.

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

rhmrcvs — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 19:43:42 GMT

Can you use nitrous on the machine with an oxygen concentrator? Sales lady at Burtons didn't know.

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Bob Russell — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 11:09:08 GMT

If you want the machine repaired try O'neil medicalia. A bit of an odd bunch but did a fantastic job of replacing the pipes on our machine with diddy ones. My experience with Burtons is they like to encourage you to spend!

Back to MSD! We have two vans deliver medicines instead of one. Drop off a tiny box usually with Bravecto in it. We have moved to an alternate product to minimise the extra CO2 production involved but do still have to have some deliveries. Nasty bad, polluting people with little concern for the environment. Hope the 'savings' pitting one wholesaler against another has saved them enough money to justify the disgraceful behaviour. End of rant!

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Joyce Whitehead — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 18:34:42 GMT

We have two oxygen concentrators and they are great, particularly useful in the last year when oxygen supplies were rationed, we rarely order a cylinder these days.

I agree with the waste issue Neil, we try to recycle what we can, but it’s tough with so much individual packaging. We have been a terracycle collection point for cat food pouches but that scheme is ending soon sadly, we at least felt we were doing our bit.

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Richard Carter — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 09:27:34 GMT

Forgot to add- the O2 concentrator with the pressure cylinder falls under the pressurised container legislation like the autoclave and dental machine so needs annual servicing by appropriate trained people (Burtons?) so is an ongoing cost in either servicing or O2 bottle rental but it does mean if you get an emergency that needs oxygen, basically doesn’t cost any extra and can run for hours

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Richard Carter — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 09:16:38 GMT

Definitely worth the money- the concentrator lasts for ever. If you get the one without a pressure cylinder, you don’t need to service it either apart from clean the filters but you will need a backup O2 cylinder for positive pressure ventilation or if power goes down

my one was basic Eickenmeyer model and could run two vapourisers easily

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Steven Odell — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 09:19:56 GMT

On a similar note re waste and our carbon footprint, one of our anaesthetic machines developed an incurable leak last week. We use cylinders of oxygen but the nice man from Burtons is telling me to replace the trolley with a funky new wall-mounted unit (needs to be replaced regardless) but complete with an oxygen concentrator which will suck the oxygen out of the ambient air and into my patient via the vaporiser at the appropriate medical grade concentration. Cost savings in terms of cylinder hire and oxygen purchasing, carbon footprint reduction with fewer deliveries on the back of a big lorry vs initial outlay for the unit of approximately £800. Does anyone else have experience of these, positive or negative? If they are as good as I am being told then it's a long term no-brainer, or am I being drawn in by the sales patter?

RE: We should be reducing waste as a profession but how?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:46:25 GMT

When you read one of those self-congratulatory articles about "how green and sustainable we have made our practice" you can be sure that they are still using disposable plastic syringes...

We should return to glass syringes and boil them, And steel needles that get sharpened on a stone from time to time. And solid steel scalpels. But the RCVS PSS commissars would be angry.

I recently read some article about some practice that had gone to low-fresh-gas-input anaesthesia and was saving vast amounts of greenhouse gas emission – so novel, such a clever idea. I've been doing anaesthesia that way since 1984.

On the other hand,

[quote userid="8958" url="~/001/nonclinical/f/life-in-practice-discussions/30043/we-should-be-reducing-waste-as-a-profession-but-how"] Is there any evidence at all that you need to change needls between pulling out a dose and injecting it? [/quote]

Evidence? Dunno. Just common sense. You do this so that the needle you stick into your patient's tissues is a) sharp, b) sterile and c) still in possession of any silicone lubricant that the manufacturer may have provided it with. None of which you can say for a needle that's been stuck through a grubby rubber stopper, with or without a cursory wipe with methylated spirit.

[quote userid="8958" url="~/001/nonclinical/f/life-in-practice-discussions/30043/we-should-be-reducing-waste-as-a-profession-but-how"]) You need to clean an area. In walks the kidney dish laveshly filed with hibiscrub and cotton wool[/quote]

Do people do that? I've always used a "wash bottle" with Savlon or a spray with one of the many disinfectants you can get nowadays.

(Does anyone else remember when surgeries always smelt of Dettol?)

Incidentally, why do people always use a kidney dish whenever they want to carry liquid? What's wrong with an ordinary bowl or plain dish? Is it just part of professional mystique?

[quote userid="8958" url="~/001/nonclinical/f/life-in-practice-discussions/30043/we-should-be-reducing-waste-as-a-profession-but-how"]now put blue tops to the vaccine bottles [/quote]

Ah, I love those coloured plastic tops to bottles. I collect them. You can do artistic things with them, but best of all they make great tiddlywinks.