The Purpose of Sharps Containers

The Purpose of Biohazard Containers

10/23/13

I have worked in the medical field for approximately thirty years now I have witnessed some pretty horrific human conditions when they have been presented into the appropriate setting.  There are certain procedures that medical workers have to complete before, during and after these types of situations arise and after things have settled down there is a process of cleanup that requires some specific guidelines to be followed so that the immediate area is considered medically safe once again.  There are certain used objects that can be placed in general trash but there are other instruments that need their own certain containers for added protection.  The same type of conditions need to be met when God takes over our mess and begins His cleanup of our lives.

Being in the medical field for a good portion of my life I have had the opportunity to witness many bloody and gruesome scenes within the emergency room setting.  Many of them I remember because of their graphic images that my eyes held within view.  While some of the fine details of these scenes have escaped me I know that somewhere buried within my mind they are still present and with the awesome capabilities of the human brain they could reappear at any time.  But I have placed my trust in God that He has taken these memories and graphic images and has cleaned them up over time and at the same time placed them into my memory bank as a reminder so that one day I might be a further witness to those who do not believe that humans can get injured while completing any task that they have undertaken.

As I stated in my opening paragraph there are certain articles of waste that can be placed into the general trash.  These items everyone understands present no real biohazard threat to the community and can be destroyed in the normal ways that are accepted by authorities. However in certain manufacturing and medical settings there are items that are exposed that can cause harm to others if they make contact with certain surfaces and then come into contact with humans and it is these items that need to have their own containers to ensure that further exposure does not occur after the product or setting has been completed.

The medical field has a product called sharps containers which are thick plastic and serve to protect others from getting poked by sharp objects that have already been used in some sort of capacity on the human body.  It is well known within the medical community that all blood and body products are considered to be biohazardous and could present dangerous results to other people if they become directly exposed to these fluids.  However, it may not be commonly understood to the general public of how dangerous it might be if a person comes into contact with another person’s body fluids and to what potential that contact might have later on down the road.  No matter what the situation provides, it is always a good practice to have things checked out if one is exposed to another person’s inner sanctum of bodily fluids.  This practice should be conducted routinely anyway, since we never know exactly what we encounter throughout the day, for we may not always see the flu virus that we come into contact with, you know the one that the person forty feet in front of us released as they coughed. 

We all have to keep in mind that our bodies are controlled compartments all inclusive in one outside structure which serves as the boundary for all of our daily functions.  With this concept I am going to keep my example of special containers secluded within a specific setting, which is inside the hospital.  In the laboratory it is common practice that phlebotomists use needles to obtain the samples needed in order to complete the required tests that the physician has ordered.  Now, in some countries it is a common practice that once the needle has been used it can be washed and used once again on another patient.  That practice is not recognized in this country and in the majority of the countries but one must understand that it is still practiced and presents a huge danger to the public.

The process of drawing blood has its own set of rules that the phlebotomist must adhere to in order to be compliant with the laws of the land.  I am not going to go into details about the pre draw and actual drawing steps of this process but I am going to focus on the after steps of the drawing procedure.  After the needle is out of the patient and the patient drawing is over the needle is then immediately covered with a plastic tip and deemed safe to lay down so that the phlebotomist can appropriately wrap up the patient’s draw site. However, even though the used needle is deemed safe it still needs to be placed into the proper container so that it cannot be accessible to anyone else ever again.  This can only be correctly completed if the needle is placed into a sharps container.

The sharps container represents the final containment field that the used needles will remain in until they are disposed of properly by the deemed necessary methods.  The governing medical bodies have accepted a process in which the used sharps can be disposed of without further exposing anyone else of the potential effects that a poke with one of these used needles might present.  This process is a wonderful procedure and it completely takes care of any additional exposure possibilities if done in the proper manner.  The process is not a fast one but it takes some time to complete but once it is started and then completed, the threat is completely over.

Now, as one might suppose there are those in the world that have different ideas for the final outcome of these used sharps.  It is widely recognized that people have minds and sometimes they allow their minds to overtake their habits and then must find ways to supply these habits.  So, one great way that a drug user can obtain cheap needles is to find where these sharps containers are located and take them. These people’s minds have developed ways to reopen these sealed containers in order to wash the used needles and to use them for their own purposes, whether to sell them to others or to use for personal gain.  This seems quite an odd thing to do but we all know that once the human mind has made the choice to do something, not much will stop the human from accomplishing their goal.  But rest assured that the majority of the used sharps are taken care of, are used only once and then properly disposed of when coming to the hospital. 

However, let us look at some issues here that we can attach ourselves to when it comes to our problems and how we take care of them.  It has been said that when we are accepting the world’s standards within our lives that we are slaves to the world, so put that in place as a habit and that there are things that the world gives us that allow us to become addicted to which means that at some point we will have to go out and search for a supply or supplier.  This does not mean drugs per say but in an overall sense it does mean a substance that can have the same effect on our lives as a drug.

If we do not recognize our “need” for worldly things and continue to seek out its supply, then we consider our waste as being general trash and our lives continually in denial that we have a problem, all the while exposing everyone else to the slave conditions that we are living within.  See, we do not even have to say anything to anybody because others have eyes and noses too.  What further complicates the problem is that the majority of the people that you come into contact in public suffers from the same slave type conditions and therefore further exposes you as well.  This setting becomes a conglomeration of spiritual diseases that our enemy wants us to be inflicted with.  It is of dire importance that we recognize that there is no general trash that our lives create.  This trash is all sin and sin only comes in one size, shape, smell and in only one category.

On the other hand, if we do recognize that our “need” for worldly things is upon or within us it is our responsibility to remove this type of waste properly.  Then we must remember to allow the appropriate authority to remove our waste from our lives according to His ways and divine laws of restoration.  It is also important that we understand and remember that our waste is toxic to our lives and cannot stay within our bodies for if we allow it to remain then its toxicity will eventually destroy our entire will to live and thrive as we were created to do.

There is only one person and one way that this trash and waste can be removed from our lives and only one way that this toxic and biohazard waste called sin be permanently placed into the appropriate container and then destroyed.  God has provided a way so that this process can be completed with one simple choice.  The process of the removal of the waste in our lives may hurt for a while but the hurt should remind us of what that waste and used product was doing inside our lives on a constant basis and how important its removal is to our state of living.

Our enemy does not like to see things that he has placed into our lives removed from its temporary home, which means that he will make it possible for someone else or another situation arise that would try and to reinstate that object or chain within our lives.  He serves as the one who steals this container and then finds away to reopen it and to use the infected and old objects that have been consumed and re-enter them into our existence.  This is a continual practice that he uses and for the most part is effective on those who do not understand this process.  When one reads the story in the Bible about how demons re-enter into the body this concept should be kept in mind.  It says that if a person likens the demon or spirit back into their lives it will bring others with it when it returns.  Which brings up the question of how many other needles are present within in one sharps container?  Even the smallest sharps container can hold up to 10 needles if needed.  So the entire mixture or potential mixture of all the body fluids into one needle is a possibility.

Cleaning up after a trauma situation or after any procedure that involves blood, can pose to be a tedious problem.  The process of cleaning up our lives in which every detail of our past and present exposures can be effectively rendered gone can only be erased by one method and that method is totally out of our hands.  If future exposures are to be limited or prevented this process must be completed so that the contents of our lives cannot be used against us again.  We would love to believe that once our lives have been cleaned up that all of our problems are over but this reasoning soon dissipates when the next issue presents itself in our lives.  This is not a time for us to question God’s ability to clean up our lives but an opportunity for Him to continue the cleaning process within our lives so that we may remain free in Him and not subject to the world’s junk and disease that it wishes to keep us tied into.

While we are still on this earth the potential that we have to advance God’s Kingdom, no matter if we understand it or not, represents a major problem to our enemy.  It is his job to make sure that our old needles be kept lying around or thrown into the general trash, for as long as he can keep this “light hearted” philosophy about sin within our individual world, then he has access to those contaminated needles and therefore can use them against us or anyone else that he sees fit at any given moment.  When we allow God to correctly clean up our used needles then He is in control over the final process in which those needles are destroyed.  We also must focus our efforts on the fact that even though the old needles in our lives might be used against us by our enemy, the one who cleaned up our needles has no record of them ever being present.

This portion of the contamination cleanup is the best because once the cleanup process is allowed to be completed, the purification process, or restoration process as it is known as, begins.  This process can only be accomplished by one who has the authority to clean up the mess in the first place.  Only one who understands the entire situation and what has occurred can know where to dispose of and how to dispose of the used needles of our lives.  The only One who knows how to dispose of our needles so that they may never be used against us again has written the policy of how this process can be made possible.  This eternal and pure person also understands that there is no difference from what the world regards as general trash but considers everything destructive within our lives as contaminated needles which can eternally harm us and bring destruction to our current lives as well.  It is His desire to clean up every aspect of contamination within our lives and to dispose of it into the proper sharps containers so that He can totally annihilate it from our lives.

It is important for us to recognize that sin is sin no matter what or how the world wishes to categorize it.  We need to make permanent note that there is no level or degree of sin, for sin is sin, period.  We must ignore the issues of the world for they do not have any control over us as long as we wish God to be in control of our lives.  It is our choice to allow God to clean up the needles within our lives and for Him to place them into the appropriate containers.  As in the medical field it is not worth it in the long run to ignore the proper clean up procedures and believe that it would be easier to pay the fine down the road if aught, for all of us will eventually get caught and none of us knows when that time will be.  Most of all it is essential that we understand, comprehend, think about, know without a shadow of doubt that there is only one way for our cleanup process to be completed correctly and that is through God, through His son’s blood alone.  So, allow God to dispose of those needles correctly and allow Him to begin the restoration process in your life and you will find yourself secure in all aspects once again.

DLB