The patient's daughter, Ms. Georgia Abernathy, suspected that the grasping forceps used on her mother may have been reprocessed and that repeated sterilizing and reuse fatigued the device to the point of failure. It's only because Ms. Abernathy, employed by a manufacturer of single-use devices, is aware of the dangers of reprocessing, that she investigated. For more than two weeks, Ms. Abernathy questioned hospital personnel about whether the hospital uses reprocessed grasping forceps. Finally, they admitted that they do use reprocessed single-use devices on patients without their knowledge and that the device that was used on Ms. Abernathy's mother was, in fact, reprocessed. If not for Ms. Abernathy's tenacity and familiarity with the risks of infection and device failure that accompany reprocessing, she would never have known that a reprocessed device was involved in her mother's injury.
Most patients are unaware that reprocessing even occurs.
Most situations like the one experienced by Ms. Abernathy's mother are neither investigated nor reported. The reprocessors here today will tell you that reprocessing is perfectly safe. They will say that the GAO report found little evidence that reprocessing and reusing devices intended for single-use only cause infection or injury. What they won't tell you however, is that we have very little information about the scope of patient injuries. Of course there's little evidence.