"DEVICE FOR DETACHING AND TEMPORARILY STORING A NEEDLE"
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a device for detaching and temporarily storing a needle. The invention will have particular utility to theatre nurses and pathology collectors in situations where they do not have immediate access to a sharps container. Preferably, the device is capable of detaching and temporarily storing a plurality of needles.
BACKGROUND ART
In recent years there has been a heightened awareness of the danger of needle-stick injury in terms of transmission of infectious diseases such as, for example, Hepatitis and AIDS. Accordingly, there has been much activity in the designing of devices for preventing needle-stick injury.
Sharps containers are well known. Whilst sharps containers can receive the entire syringe/needle assembly, it is preferable that only the needle be placed in the sharps container for safe disposal. Some sharps containers include means by which the needle can be manually detached from the syringe. See, for example, US Patent 4,576,281 to Kirksey. Another sharps container in which the needle can be detached from the syringe is disclosed in International Application PCT/GB88/00308 to McCammon and Moffat.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
This invention in one aspect resides in a device for detaching and temporarily storing a needle, the device including : - receiving means for receiving the needle so that the syringe can be detached from the needle; and
ejection means for ejecting the needle from the receiving means.
The receiving means may take any form capable of holding the needle whilst the syringe is detached from the needle, however it is preferred that the receiving means is an aperture for receiving the hub of the needle in a friction fit. A taper may be provided on the aperture and/or needle hub to facilitate the friction fit. The ejection means may take any form capable of ejecting the needle by bearing on the needle or needle hub, however it is preferred that the ejection means is an axially movable member, the member including a bore which aligns with the aperture and which is larger in diameter than the needle shaft and smaller in diameter than the needle hub.
In the preferred embodiment the device is capable of detaching and temporarily storing a plurality of needles.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
In order that this invention may be more easily understood and put into practical effect, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiment of the invention, wherein: -
FIG 1 is a perspective view of a device for detaching and temporarily storing a needle;
FIG 2 is a perspective view of the inverted device of FIG 1; FIG 3 is a section view along line 3-3 of FIG 2.
BEST MODE
With reference to FIG 1, the device 2 includes a hollow handle 4 and concave guiding surface 6. The concave guiding surface includes a flattened edge 8 for preventing the device from rolling about on a flat surface. The handle and guiding surface are conveniently
made of a plastics material or the like.
The device also includes a surface 12 centrally located relative to the guiding surface and having a number (5) of receiving means in the form of apertures 14 provided therein. Each aperture is adapted to fixedly receive a needle 16 in a friction fit as discussed hereunder .
As shown best in FIG 3, the needle 16 includes a needle hub 18 via which the needle is mounted to the barrel of the syringe (not shown) . The needle hub is usually made of a plastics material and is larger in diameter than the needle.
The needle can be pushed into the device so that the needle hub 18 is received in a frictional fit in the aperture 14 with the needle itself extending into the hollow handle. Once the needle is frictionally received in the device, the needle can be detached from the syringe by unscrewing or pulling the syringe away from the needle. The needle is safely retained in the handle of the device as shown in FIG 3.
The device also includes ejection means in the form of an axially movable member 20 having bores 22 corresponding to the apertures. The member 20 is movable in the direction of the arrows. The diameter of each bore 22 is larger than the diameter of the needle 16 but smaller than the diameter of the needle hub 18.
The movable member, which is plate-like in configuration, is spring biased to the position shown in FIG 3. However, it can be manually displaced against the spring bias so that the plate engages the needle hub and ejects the needle out of the device. Of course, this operation is performed with the device inverted as shown in FIGS 2 and 3 and would be conducted over a sharps container to catch the ejected needle. It will be appreciated that a plurality of apertures are provided so that corresponding plurality of needles can be received and temporarily stored.
The present invention provides a device for
detaching and temporarily storing hypodermic needles. Thus, the device is used for temporarily storing the needles until they can be disposed of in a conventional sharps container. The device is designed and constructed soas to be autoclavable and reusable.
It will of course be realised that whilst the above has been given by way of an illustrative example of this invention, all such and other modifications and variations hereto, as would be apparent to persons skilled in the art, are deemed to fall within the broad scope and ambit of this invention as is herein set forth.