Another entry in the ongoing saga of the cost-saving maneuver of reusing syringes in Canadian Health Care facilities.

See previous blog entries here; [url]http://forums.nurse.com/blog.php?b=98[/url], here [url]http://forums.nurse.com/blog.php?b=95[/url], and here [url]http://forums.nurse.com/blog.php?b=85[/url]

Now the latest from Candian news.

[url]http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/11/13/syringes-re-used.html[/url]

Originally it was supposed to just be one facility, and officials were confident that this practice was isolated.

Then we found out that this was going on at a second facililty, and then a third. Each time, the officials reaffirmed that they didn't think this was a widespread problem.

Now, just a couple weeks later, the number of facilities found to be reusing syringes (and the leftover drugs in these syringes), on multiple patients.

Don't be surprised if folks now don't believe the Sask health minister when she says that it's "not necessary" for people to be tested. I'm guessing it's because it would be expensive for this single-payor system to test the thousands of people who were victims of this malpractice...and besides, we can't be confident that they aren't reusing the lab-draw needles used to collect the samples.