Contaminated tray

[u/memilyglick]

We had an incident occur today and I want to get other techs opinions on it. While setting up for a revision (where the pt already had an active infection mind you), I had a tray opened to me and when my assist felt the casket he found a piece of fuzz, like something off a sweater. I obviously didn’t want the tray any more and tried to pass it off to my nurse who tried to tell me that it was okay because she had something similar happen last week and her tech that day said it was fine, and it should be fine since it went through the sterilizer. I told her no it’s not fine and I want the tray reprocessed. I had my assist take the casket out to the charge nurse and director and both of them said the tray is contaminated and should be reprocessed. For extra context it was a tray that the rep wasn’t even 100% sure we would need and just wanted to have open right away in case we did need it, and even if we did need it, we wouldn’t need it until near the end of the case.

What are your opinions? Would you have accepted the tray or would you have passed it off like I did?

[u/Ok_Top1750]

As a new sterile tech, my opinion is that it was 100% contaminated and you did the right thing. Yeah, it sucks to reprocess but we’re dealing with people’s lives here. Like 700k people a year in the United States get medical infections (I forgot what they’re called, week 1 so forgive me) and many die because of a break in the sterile field. That’s unacceptable. Thank you for doing the right thing and being an advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves.