Gloves for Paramedics

Mem­bers of med­ical emer­gency teams, being on the front line dur­ing res­cue oper­a­tions, are exposed to direct con­tact with blood, secre­tions, and body flu­ids of the injured. Field con­di­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer from those in an oper­at­ing room, both in terms of con­trol and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using var­i­ous types of pro­tec­tive mea­sures. There­fore, the basic form of pro­tec­tion for a para­medic are dis­pos­able gloves and acces­sories belong­ing to the cat­e­go­ry of per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment. What char­ac­ter­is­tics should gloves for para­medics, emer­gency nurs­es, and sys­tem physi­cians have?

Gloves for Paramedics – Safety is the Priority

One of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of med­ical res­cue is per­son­al safe­ty. In every sit­u­a­tion, before pro­vid­ing assis­tance, it is cru­cial to secure both the scene and one­self.

The res­cue team, as well as wit­ness­es pro­vid­ing first aid, may come into con­tact with the injured per­son­’s blood, sali­va, vom­it, etc. Body flu­ids of the injured per­son may con­tain poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous pathogens, espe­cial­ly includ­ing HIV, hepati­tis B and C virus­es, among oth­ers.

Con­tact with blood and the poten­tial for infec­tion is a sig­nif­i­cant risk fac­tor, hence pro­tec­tive gloves are a stan­dard in med­ical prac­tice. A sec­ondary, but equal­ly impor­tant fac­tor is psy­cho­log­i­cal com­fort – gloves pro­vide a bar­ri­er against direct con­tact with the body of the ill per­son. Sin­gle-Use pro­tec­tive gloves in the prac­tice of a med­ical first respon­der are a fun­da­men­tal means of pro­tec­tion.

What characteristics must gloves have in medical rescue?

Środ­ki ochrony indy­wid­u­al­nej (ŚOI) ratown­i­ka medy­cznego muszą wyróż­ni­ać się przede wszys­tkim odpornoś­cią na uszkodzenia. W warunk­ach udziela­nia pomo­cy może dojść do sytu­acji, w których zachodzi ryzyko przy­pad­kowego roz­er­wa­nia, prze­bi­cia lub prze­cię­cia rękaw­icz­ki. Z tego wzglę­du mate­ri­ał powinien być wytrzy­mały. W stan­dard­zie uży­wane są rękaw­icz­ki nit­ry­lowe.

Nitrile is a syn­thet­ic mate­r­i­al with very good pro­tec­tive prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, due to the fact that it is less stretch­able, the gloves need to be well-fit­ted. Their advan­tage is that they pro­vide high pre­ci­sion of move­ment, are resis­tant to mechan­i­cal dam­age and chem­i­cal agents. In the prac­tice of emer­gency med­ical ser­vices, nitrile gloves are a rec­om­mend­ed, very good choice.

If you want to learn more about the dif­fer­ences between latex and nitrile gloves, read this arti­cle, and for a com­par­i­son of the prop­er­ties of gloves, you can find it here.

Additional Protection

Although gloves pro­vide suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion against micro­bi­o­log­i­cal agents, in med­ical res­cue, it is often com­mon prac­tice to wear two pairs of pro­tec­tive gloves. This is due to the spe­cif­ic con­di­tions in which med­ical res­cue oper­ates. Wear­ing two pairs of dis­pos­able gloves allows for a quick change of the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed pair with­out the need to waste time look­ing for and putting on new gloves. This ensures bet­ter pro­tec­tion against mechan­i­cal dam­age, as even if the out­er pair of gloves is torn, the inner pair remains intact.

Medical Rescue – Gloves Are Not Everything

Sin­gle-use gloves are a basic form of pro­tec­tion against infec­tions in emer­gency med­ical prac­tices, but one must also remem­ber oth­er per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment (PPE) for med­ical first respon­ders – pro­tec­tive cloth­ing, masks, and gog­gles. Above all, it’s cru­cial to remem­ber the rules of hand hygiene and to dis­in­fect hands before using gloves and after remov­ing them, to ensure that no pathogens remain on the skin that could be acci­den­tal­ly trans­ferred. Read more about hand hygiene rules and cor­rect use of med­ical gloves.

Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE) of med­ical first respon­ders ensures safe­ty dur­ing res­cue oper­a­tions. Med­ical first respon­ders, as well as oth­er mem­bers of res­cue teams and the nation­al med­ical res­cue sys­tem, should pay spe­cial atten­tion to select­ing the best pos­si­ble gloves.

Bibliography:

1. Łukasz Szarpak, Wiedza doty­czą­ca asep­ty­ki i anty­sep­ty­ki oraz przestrze­ganie ich zasad jako ele­men­ty pro­fi­lak­ty­ki zakażeń w pra­cy ratown­i­ka medy­cznego, Med Pr 2013;64(2):239–243l

2. Cen­tral­ny Insty­tut Ochrony Pra­cy – Państ­wowy Insty­tut Badaw­czy, „Ratown­ik medy­czny. Między­nar­o­dowa kar­ta charak­terysty­ki zagrożeń zawodowych”, ciop.pl;

3. Ustawa z dnia 8 wrześ­nia 2006 r. o Państ­wowym Ratown­ictwie Medy­cznym, Dz.U.2020.882 t.j.

4. Witold Gacek, Katarzy­na Majchrzy­c­ka, Środ­ki Ochrony Indy­wid­u­al­nej, Pod­stawy i Metody Oce­ny Środowiska Pra­cy 2004, nr 3 (41), s. 53–60;

5. Medy­cy­na Prak­ty­cz­na, Bez­pieczeńst­wo ratown­i­ka na miejs­cu zdarzenia, mp.pl dla pac­jen­tów (25.06.2019);