workplace unintentionally enabling self harm tendencies

[kuniwan]

I work in an operating room and we had a brand of surgical blades recalled because they were too fragile and breaking inside patients during procedures.

We can't just throw the whole stock away because a lot of them were already put into pre-packaged supply bags that we need to open up to prepare for surgeries. It would simply be too much of a hassle to open them individually to replace the blades in each pack, so we were instructed to toss the blades whenever we encountered them from a pack.

What makes it kind of worse is that when a scrub tech opens and sort through a pack, part of my role is pass items to and from them because they gotta stay sterile. So, Im the one who typically takes the blades from them by natural process. I'm also in a rush often so I don't quite have the time to throw them out the right way sometimes.

It's been like this for months and I've amassed a huge stockpile of perfectly sterile, free blades. They're stored everywhere, in my car, in my bags in my room. below was how many I cleaned out of my lunchbox today (thats what kinda spurred this post for me.)

It's just such a weird combination of events that came together. I don't really how to feel about all this. I cant bring myself to really throw them away or stop collecting yet so I know this is on me at the end of the day

 

[particularrodent]

unrelated sorry but every time i see a scaramouche themed profile it's such a jumpscare. wait what if im in the OR and my surgeon is a fellow wormie???

 

[timf]

If you can work up the nerve to throw half away, you might be able to rid yourself of them after a few iterations. You might be able to make the break by considering that the super sharp blades may not work well for self harm because they are so sharp.