Next mission coming
Today I just finished pimping up the website for our next campaign starting from … yes, today!
I am glad that you made it until here and I would like to thank you for your time, patience and money – if you donated ;-)
At the present time, we are organizing our next mission to Jamkhed, starting for two weeks of intensive surgical operations beginning September 29th 2024. In the meantime, I checked the possibilities to have a regular autoclave with steam sterilization set up in Julia Hospital at Jamkhed.
Some of the surgical instruments bought in 2023 (a hernia set).
Last year I managed to buy 5 sets of instruments directly in India (thank you https://ngsinstruments.com/ ), which worked out perfectly. Some pictures of the instruments are in this post. The plan for this year is the autoclave! … could be somewhat more tricky to organize…
Steam Sterilization Cycle in autoclave
The sterilization process to obtain perfectly germ-free surgical instruments can be brought down to 5 essential steps: Five steps of autoclave sterilization
Place the items to be sterilized in the autoclave. Lock the door.
A vacuum pump sucks the air from the chamber.
The temperature reaches the correct level.
Steam kills bacteria and microbes.
Steam is being released, someone opens the door, and the items are ready for use.
You can find more detailed informations here. The tables in the article are from this same website.
Typical steam Sterilization Conditions
Sterilization of stainless steel instrument is readily obtained by steam cycles as in description; but heat sensitive devices cannot undergo the same procedure. Some of the other procedures to obtain sterile equipment are ETO (applying a gas Ethylene Oxide over time in a closed chamber), ore rays Gamma rays e.g., or Formaldehyde solution.
But there are some flaws: ETO is very inflammable and usually needs more time than steam. The gas is also toxic for animals, humans, … Gamma rays efficiently eliminate microorganisms from the medical devices and tissue allografts, but also significantly change molecular structure of irradiated products, particularly fragile biologics such as cytokines, chemokines and growth factors. Formaldehyde is also toxic and not as efficient as the three above mentioned techniques. Also, prolonged Formaldehyde use can provoke long-term consequences on the involved medical staff.
Dr. Valentina Corni & Mr. Sameer Shaikh
As soon as we will have news concerning our sterilization process, I will let you know. In the meantime, I wish you all a peaceful spring season.
