Campaign takes a stab at promoting proper disposal of used needles in China
- Used syringes in household rubbish cans constitute a ‘gigantic potential source for contagious diseases’, doctor says
- I Love Future NGO has distributed 12,000 sharp waste boxes to diabetes patients at no charge at 20 hospitals over five years
Five years ago, Hu Yuan, an endocrinologist in Wuxi, a city near Shanghai in eastern China, asked his diabetes patients what they did with the needles they used to inject themselves with insulin.
The answer left him “astonished and worried”.
“They said they just threw it [away] like ordinary household rubbish,” Hu said in an interview.
Accustomed to hospitals collecting and disposing of waste needles discreetly, the doctor said it was unthinkable that “so many used needles were left in the garbage of our communities, exposed in the open air” – essentially becoming one “gigantic potential source for contagious diseases”.
The more he dwelt on the maths – a huge number of diabetes patients in China would do the same thing with their used needles after self-injecting insulin or conducting blood sugar tests – he resolved to stop the disposal of used needles in rubbish cans.
He and his colleagues at Wuxi Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital started to promote the importance of people refraining from throwing away needles wilfully.