Do you remember these? The first time I undertook ear irrigation was in 1981, talk about overkill – these monsters are around 10 inches long and 2 inches thick and were used by the NHS for many years. I visited my doctor on many occasions with ear wax blockages and he always referred me to the duty nurse after a week of olive oil. The nurse would fill up one of these with water, throw on an apron and blast your affected ear until the wax blockage popped out.
Due to the high pressure some unfortunate
patients suffered ruptured ear drums during the process, costing the NHS an
average of £40,000 per person. ...ouch!
The steel syringe is archaic technology, the tip itself does
not allow for efficient backflow, so water pressure can build up in the ear and
that was partly the reason for some of the liability claims. The jet of water from the tip was direct,
again putting pressure on the ear drum.
New devices include tips that are angled, that squirt against
the ear canal wall rather than straight down the ear canal. These new tips are
included on the AculifeEar Wax Removal Syringe.
As you can imagine, to save costs the NHS stopped using them
and now use a more sensitive product called the Propulse
NG Ear Irrigator costing around £174.00 the last time I looked.
The Steel Irrigation syringe can still be found in vet’s practices and some third world countries
Unfortunately the Steel Ear irrigation syringe is still
available on retail stores such as Amazon and Ebay, it clearly should not be sold as an Ear
Syringe to unsuspecting customers.
So to all those retailers who sell these products online, is
your insurance company aware of this? Is
your current liability insurance adequate?
If not you could find
yourself in hot water.
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