Save the Children, Kathmandu, Nepal E-mail:
School of Health Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
J Water Health. 2021 Aug;19(4):682-686. doi: 10.2166/wh.2021.071.
Reusable medical devices are decontaminated and sterilized often many times by healthcare facilities across the globe. Reprocessing of medical devices comprises several processes and water plays an important role in some of these, including cleaning and steam sterilization. The water used is required to have certain qualities to ensure the effectiveness of the processes. In this short communication, we report findings of our study which measured quality parameters (pH, total hardness) for water used for medical device reprocessing in 13 primary and secondary care public hospitals in Nepal. The mean pH of water used for reprocessing of medical devices varied from 6.48 to 8.05 across the hospitals whereas the mean total hardness of water varied from 5.93 to 402.50 mg/L CaCO. Although the range of the mean water pH across hospitals fell within the recommended range, many of the hospitals had mean total hardness higher than recommended for cleaning medical devices. None of the hospitals had mean total hardness suitable for using as feed-water for steam generation. Public hospitals in Nepal should have appropriate water treatment systems so that the recommended water quality can be achieved to ensure effective decontamination and reprocessing of medical devices.
全球各地的医疗机构经常对可重复使用的医疗器械进行多次消毒和灭菌处理。医疗器械的再处理包括几个过程，水在其中一些过程中起着重要作用，包括清洁和蒸汽灭菌。用于医疗器械再处理的水需要具有一定的质量，以确保这些过程的有效性。在本次简短的交流中，我们报告了在尼泊尔 13 家初级和二级保健公立医院进行的一项研究的结果，该研究测量了用于医疗器械再处理的水中的质量参数（pH 值、总硬度）。在这些医院中，用于医疗器械再处理的水的 pH 值平均值从 6.48 到 8.05 不等，而水的总硬度平均值从 5.93 到 402.50mg/L CaCO3 不等。尽管医院间水 pH 值的平均值范围在推荐范围内，但许多医院的总硬度平均值高于推荐用于清洁医疗器械的值。没有一家医院的总硬度平均值适合用作蒸汽发生的给水。尼泊尔的公立医院应配备适当的水处理系统，以达到推荐的水质，确保医疗器械的有效消毒和再处理。
