CzechMed warns against reuse of disposable medical instruments

2010-02-22

CzechMed, the Czech association of medial device manufacturers, has warned against the reprocessing and reuse of disposable medical instruments by hospitals, claiming that they may put patients at risk.
CzechMed believes that these devices are sometimes used two or three times by a hospital before being discarded, which is in breach of Czech law. This is based on the estimated difference between the number of procedures performed with the disposable devices and their sales levels on the Czech market. According to CzechMed, when settling their accounts with health insurance funds, the hospitals disclose the reprocessed devices as new, and thereby receive money for items which they have not actually purchased. The funds, which reimburse Czech hospitals for the cost of the devices, do not have any specific safeguards in place in order to check whether the devices have been used more than once. However, the hospitals have denied this practice, claiming that they use disposable devices only once, as required by law.