What Does Medical Supply Mean To Public Health System?

By Eugenia Dickerson


Medical supply plays a primary role in a safe and effective health environment. Other than the safety and faster healing for patients, they also protect the health workers from catching infections and getting injured in their work environment. For this reason therefore, such essential supplies must be carefully selected for the health environment to remain safe.

While the primary target is always to improve the health status of the patient and safety of the health providers, complete opposite can sometimes happen. They can sometimes be the source of threat in health sector as a result of defectiveness or mishandling.

For this reason therefore, proper consideration must always be given in procurement and handling these essential utilities. They play a primary role in the health of both the patients and the health providers. The support staff in health facilities is too must be protected from defective equipment.

While the hospitals and other health providers might put in place all the necessary steps to ensure that their environment and treatment procedures are completely secure, the efforts are sometimes in vain particularly if the utilizes supplied to them are defective or are below the required standards. The storage procedures must also be effective as most of these materials are highly sensitive to environmental conditions such light, moisture, temperature and even pressure.

Health acquired conditions is a category of any form of ailment, injury or infection acquired by a patient under health facility care. In other words, a patient who comes to seek treatment for something unrelated acquires a new condition in the process of treatment. Falling and breaking a bone or two in the medical facility is an example. Other common infections and conditions that are easily acquired in this manner includes urinary tract infections associated with catheter, blood infections associated with central line, ventilator related pneumonia and even pressure ulcers among many others.

The other victims when it comes to poor quality or defective equipment are the health workers. This category consist of the health professionals like nurses and doctors and support staff like cleaners and others. There are reports where doctors sustain injuries when handling this equipment. The situation can even be worse when they get infected with life threatening ailments as a result of defective equipment. For protective measures, gloves, masks and other protective cloths are normally used.

Thanks to technology, most of the supplies in the hospitals today are usually of the required standard. Stringent measures are put in place in the manufacturing process with quality assessment at various levels to assure that only top quality products reach health facilities.

The success of the health sector however lies in the continuous provision of effective and efficient medical supply equipment and other utilities. The success of these requires effort from all the players in the industry from the manufacturers, suppliers, distributors to store keepers and the actual users. All must put in necessary measures to provide safe utilities and sacrifice profits for ethics as these utilities means life. The government through laws and regulations must also play their part effectively in protecting the life and health of their citizens.




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