Saskatchewan to be first province to insist on safer needles

[five_alarm]

REGINA, SK - Saskatchewan will soon become the first province to make it mandatory for health-care facilities to use retractable needles and other "safety-engineered" medical devices, a move designed to reduce the number of needle sticks. Provincial Labour Minister Deb Higgins said new regulations should be in place by spring. She said while the initiative will be costly, as much as $3-million upfront, the move will ultimately save money because it will cut down dramatically on injuries and deaths among workers who are stuck accidentally. Safety-engineered devices include retractable needles and catheters, self-sheathing scalpels, plastic instead of glass vials, and a host of other items that add an extra layer of protection between sharps and workers' skin. Each year, more than 70,000 health-care workers in Canada suffer from needle sticks and other cuts that place them at risk of contracting blood-borne diseases such as HIV-AIDS and hepatitis C.

Source: The Globe and Mail (http://www.firehall.com/refer.php?url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041102/HNEEDLES02/TPHealth/&linkid=1061&parent=news(headlines)&)