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I have a question about proper disposal of a full Foley bag from a rectal cath. off a C Diff. resident. I am a brand new CNA.To make a long story short, I was asked to do things I was unfamiliar with and hadn't fully trained on. My first day working by myself on the job I was asked to do peri care for a resident. I found out when I entered the room that it was a C Diff resident with a rectal cath. When it came time to dispose of the full bag I asked how to do it and was told in a hurried and frustrated manner to double bag it and throw it in the trash. This didn't seem right to me because it was contaminated with C Diff. and I thought even double bagging can get rippped by someone else taking out the garbage not knowing to be careful of the contents... which is exactly what ended up happening, and it left a trail of the material all the way down the hall floor that nobody seemed to notice and was walking on. I was afraid to question the instructions because the nurse seemed irritated by my inexperience. The whole situation didn't feel right to me. Shouldn't that have been considered a biohazard with a proper process of disposal other than double bagged in the trash?
Unfortunately there is no good way to dispose of this. With any hazardous waste, whether it be BM, a blood soaked gauze, NG drainge, etc. there are placed where exposures can take place. The stool management system (that sounds awful fancy considering what it 'takes care of') I worked with at a previous job had a bag that could be emptied and "burped." When the bag had to be changed, it was empited first, the stool went in the hopper in soiled utility, the bag went into a garbage bag that was knotted, and then this bag went into the red biohazard bag. It is 100% foolproof that nothing would happen? No, but I'm not sure the foolproof system exists when working with this.
maelstrom143
398 Posts
We usually empty as much as possible into the toilet then bag it in red biohazard and into the biohazard container.