Aligned with its commitment towards safety of healthcare workers, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) is organizing ‘Santa Says…Stay Sharp Be Safe’ pan India campaign to encourage usage of safety engineered devices. The campaign will run during December 20 to 31, 2017 to spread awareness on safety of healthcare workers across hospitals such as Medanta, Gangaram, Artemis, Columbia Asia, Apollo, PSRI, ESI, BLKapur to name a few in Delhi.

BD is an American medical technology company that manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems and reagents globally.

Realising the occupational hazards faced by workers in a healthcare setup, BD had initiated this campaign last year. This year, the campaign focuses on the issues faced by healthcare workers – needle stick injuries including exposure to blood-borne pathogens such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, being the most highest of all.

With this campaign, healthcare workers can adapt a healthy and safe working environment for themselves which will reduce the intensity of hospital acquired infections and needle stick injuries.  

A study undertaken in AIIMS Trauma centre in 2014 showed about 36% of doctors, 14.6% of nurses and 7% of housekeeping staff had accidental needle stick injuries. Moreover, a policy guidance released by the WHO in February 2015 highlighted needle- stick injury as one of the major issues and have advocated for the use of Sharps Injury Protection (SIP) devices. This policy also provides guidance to key stakeholders that play a critical role in the adoption and implementation of safe injection practices, i.e., in endorsing the policy, manufacturing the devices, ensuring their procurement and distribution at the country level, promoting their correct use by healthcare providers and their evaluation in terms of safety and effectiveness

According to a study, India contributes to 30% of the 16 billion injections administered worldwide. Sadly, of these, 63% are estimated to be unsafe due to improper sterilization, reuse or faulty administration, making them a leading cause of infection to healthcare workers. There have been epidemics of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C in many parts of the country due attributable to reuse of syringes and needles. Additionally, needle prick injuries is a prominent occupational hazard and has the prevalence ranging from 10% to 50% in the studied population. WHO has observed that there were 3 million accidental NSIs leading to 37% of all new HBV cases, 39% of new HCV cases and 5.5% of new HIV cases.

Vishal Taneja, Business Director-BD Medical, BD India commented, “Backed by 120 years of tradition and heritage in safety, BD brings an expertise in manufacturing high quality safety-engineered medical devices that is unrivaled. With ‘Santa says..Stay Sharp Be Safe’ campaign across hospitals this festive season, we would seek to advance the right spirit of education and training on infection prevention and control, including needlestick and sharps safety, use of safety-engineered devices for better clinical practices and also enhance our engagement to protect healthcare workers from sharps injuries in the country. BD’s portfolio of safety devices for blood collection, injection, infusion, and sharps collection helps ensure patient safety and healthcare provider protection from the risks associated with unsafe practices.”