Do you clean bedpans or throw them out?

[RNdynamic]

Do you actually rinse out plastic bedpans?

I will always empty and rinse out bedpans that contain straight urine, but if somebody has a BM in a bedpan, I often don't empty it at all. I just throw the bedpan, stool and all, straight into the trash can and get another one for later use. I think it is so gross to rinse out stool over the sink as it drips and splashes all over the place. It can also be difficult and time consuming to wash out large, sticky pieces of stool from the plastic.

However, recently another nurse told me that it was against policy to throw out bedpans that contain stool and that the housekeepers get mad about it. I haven't been able to find documentation of that but just to be safe, I sometimes will cover the bedpan with paper towels after tossing it.

How do you handle bedpans? Do you wash them out or throw them out?

[Tenebrae, BSN, RN]

Do they not provide shielded sluice sinks?

I suspect we may be talking about a different type of plastic, because generally in the hospitals it gets sluiced, rinsed and put through the steriliser (think autoclave)

[jmtndl]

I put the bedpan in the trash then remove the trash from the room so I'm not leaving a stinky bedpan in the patient's room. Housekeeping doesn't even know.

[Loo17]

I just chunk the whole thing minus urine in the biohazard trash.

Wish we could do this. Employer told us doing that costs the hospital too much money because biohazard waste is very expensive to dispose of.

[VANurse2010]

It depends on the situation. If it's completely drenched in C. Diff, yes. If it's just a lump of normal BM, no. Few things chap my hide more than nurses who indiscriminately waste supplies.