ENGINEERED MEDICAL TEXTILES for Better Health
Care facilities
Suggestions from Ministry of Textiles
New Delhi
01 -09-2009
World Health Organisation in their Country
Co-operation Strategy for India states :
“Communicable diseases account for about 38% of the disease burden
with large variation across states. New or re-emerging diseases have
highlighted the importance of public health system including
surveillance, rapid response capacity, infection control and timely health
information”
Edana (European association of nonwoven manufacturers)
has estimated hospital acquired infection at 25% for the
developing countries .Do we want to continue with hospital
acquired infection at such a high rate ?
Do we want to control the super bugs such as swine
flue,AIDS,HIV etc ?
Do we want international standard medical facilities in
India ?
Do we want to do something substantial to promote medical
tourism ?
Engineered medical textile offers tremendous opportunities of
reaching higher standards of medical care through :
Non woven
disposable
Specialty wound
care products
•Gowns
•Drapes
•Masks
•Caps
•Shoe covers
•Nonwoven
gauge, sponges,
dressings.
•Elasticated flat
bandages
•Foam padded
arm sling
•Tubular finger
bandages
•Orthopedic
casting bandage
•Pressure gloves
•Pressure
garments
.
Implantable
medical Textiles
•Bifurcated
arterial
prosthetic graft
•Artificial Joints
•Artificial Kidney
/ Dialysers
•Artificial
Tendon (Mesh)
•Artificial
Vascular Grafts
•Artificial heart
valve etc
Nonwoven disposables
Nonwoven disposables
Mask & Cap
Mask , Caps, Gowns and Drapes
Why Nonwoven disposables?
Need for Infection Control !!
•
Use of disposable nonwoven medical fabrics
important role in reducing hospital infections.
play
•
International studies have indicated that single-use
nonwoven products reduced infection by 2.5 times
compared to traditional textiles.
•
International studies have shown that 56% of reusable
textiles had significant defects that could seriously
compromise their performance
an
Why Nonwoven disposables?
Need for Infection Control !!
.
High barrier/Protection
• Traditional
textiles
are
typically
absorbent and body liquid like blood,
Plasma etc can comes in contact with
skin of wearer .Unlike this Nonwoven
fabrics are engineered to have high
barrier to blood or body fluids.
•
Re-usable textiles can develop tears and holes during the
washing process.
.
Why Nonwoven disposables ?
Low Linting
•
Lint is a source of infection since
bacteria often use it as a carrier
•
Re-usable fabrics generate lot of
lint during washing process.
•
Nonwoven fabrics typically have
low lint
Why Nonwoven disposables ?
Proven Sterilization Performance
Nonwovens are compatible with
multiple sterilization methods such as
steam, ETO,gamma ( depending on
composition)
Why Nonwoven disposables ?
Comfort/Conformability
• Comfort critical for gowns
• Nonwovens have good breathability
• Conformability important for drapes
• Nonwovens are flexible/soft
Why Nonwoven disposables ?
Single Use and Economical
• Various studies indicate that when
total costs are calculated single-use
fabrics are generally lower cost than
re-usables.
• Use of nonwoven will reduce the
overall health care cost to the nation
by reducing cross infection
Advantages of disposable products in
Government Hospitals/Health Centres






Prevention of hospital acquired infection.
Cross-infection reduced .
Doctors’/Health workers’ protection from exposure to pathogen.
Savings in overall healthcare costs due to reduced cross-infections.
Total budgeted expenditure of Ministry of health of Rs 18380 crore
inclusive of National Rural Health Mission of Rs 12529 crore can
be reduced significantly by adopting/increasing use of nonwoven
disposable
WHO has recommended use of disposable personal protective
equipments i.e apron,mask,gown,cap,gloves etc in its practical
guidelines for infection control in health care facilities
Advantages of disposable products

Ultra disposable surgical gowns protects the medical professionals
against the transmission of AIDS, hepatitis and other blood-borne
infections.

Surgical masks protect medical and dental professionals from
acquiring or transmitting infections.

Non-woven shoe covers protect surgeons from infections and the
discharge and adverse effects of static electricity.
Disposable drapes prevent cross infections.

Disadvantages of reusable products

The reusable gown, drapes, face mask, cap need to be washed and
sterilised after each surgery. For washing 1 kg of cloth more than 7
litres of water is required and host of polluting salt and detergents
are released through untreated water.

SITRA studies have shown that after 15 washes the Bacterial
Filtration Efficiency goes down drastically endangering medical
professionals health.
Reusable Surgical Gown
No. of washes
Bacterial Filtration
Efficiency(%)
Air Permeability
(cm3/cm2/sec.)
0
92.79
5.83
2
92.79
5.85
3
92.19
5.87
5
90.24
5.97
10
89.01
6.13
15
88.38
6.39
20
72.88
6.42
25
71.69
6.49
30
69.21
6.54
Very significant reduction in bacterial filtration efficiency with
successive washes has been noticed in research studies.
Disposable non-woven surgical gowns

Bacterial filtration efficiency – 95 –98%

Air permeability – 25-30 cm3/cm2/sec

This shows not only these are safer, these are much more
comfortable.
Comparative cost of disposable and
reusable products
No. of usage
Cloth + Stitching (Fixed
cost)
Laundry + Sterilisation
(Recurring Cost at Rs.1.50
per cycle for 10 cycles)
Total Cost
Cost per Usage
Cost of re-usable
Caps
Masks
(Rs.)
(Rs.)
10
10
35.00
Cost of disposable
Caps
Masks
(Rs.)
(Rs.)
17.50
15.00
15.00
50.00
5.00
32.50
3.25
2.00 –
3.00
3.00
Source : Report of the Expert Committee on Technical Textiles (ECTT)
The above cost of re-usable products is excluding the environmental cost.
It is noteworthy that many court pronouncements insist for zero discharge
norm.
Specialty wound care products
.
Specialty wound care products
Elasticated Flat Bandage
Tubular Finger Bandages
Pressure Gloves
Pressure Garments
.
Specialty wound care products
Foam Padded Arm Sling
Elasticated Net Garment
Orthopaedic Casting Bandage
Why Specialty wound care products ?

Presently in most of the wound cases gauze bandages are used. This
causes discomfort for the patient and in many cases the curing takes
long time.

One more commonly used bandage is Crepe bandages which also
have similar disadvantages.
Why Specialty wound care products ?

In developed countries such as UK, USA bandages made of
different fibres are being used. These are generally specialty
bandages for particular wounds. Such use has also been observed
in reputed hospitals in private sector. For e.g., Appollo Hospital,
Meenakshi Hospital, Asian Heart Institute, Escorts etc.

Nonwoven sponges,dressing,bandage rolls provide improved
absorbent capacity and greater wicking

These wound care products enhances wound healing and patient
confort
Specialty wound care products
.

Existing Indian Standards are only for woven cotton bandages.

The Japanese pharmaceutical law enforcement regulation has
identified nonwoven gauges through its Bulletin No. 133.

The European standards for nonwoven dressings are covered under
European standard EN 1644-1.

Nonwoven disposables comply with the Association for the
Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) PB70 standards
IMPLANTABLE MEDICAL TEXTILES
Implantable medical Textiles
Bifurcated Arterial Prosthetic Graft
Artificial Heart Valve
(Includes knitted fabric)
IMPLANTABLE MEDICAL TEXTILES

Most of implantable medical textiles are imported now.

Availability of Indian standards will encourage in producing these
products in India, which in turn will reduce the price of those
products.
Center of Excellence
To provide infrastructure support at one place for the technical textile
manufacturer the government has set up four Centers of
Excellence(COE) in the thrust areas of technical textiles. The details
are given below:
Segment
Agency
Meditech
SITRA with AC college of technology,Chenai
Protech
NITRA with IIT delhi
Geotech
BTRA with ATIRA
Agrotech
SASMIRA with MANTRA and Navsari
agriculture University
The four COEs have been sanctioned Rs.43.31 crore by th MOT
Centre of Excellence
Meditech
SITRA has been sanctioned Rs Rs. 10.36 crore for
setting up of COE for Meditech. So far an amount of
Rs 3.875 crores has been released to the COE :
SITRA.
Centre of Excellence
The SITRA-COE Meditech is in the process of createing
the following facilities:
 Facilities for testing and evaluation of products of
segments of technical textiles.
:

Develop as a national and international accreditation
center

Development
infrastructure

Facilities for training of core personnel and regular
training of personnel from the industry
of
Resource
Centre
with
I.T.
Recommendations
Recommendations

Majority of health care administration in the country is done
through civil hospital, public health centres, hospitals run by local
bodies, i.e., Municipal hospitals. Further ESI, CGHS, railway
hospital, defence hospitals and hospitals run by PSEs are also very
significant health care provider. We would like to refer them
loosely as government hospitals.

The government hospitals and health centres should be encouraged
to use disposable products such as drape, bed linen and medical
professionals’ gowns, face mask, cap, shoe cover etc. The largest
supplier to the government hospital is through GMSD (Govt.
Medical Stores Department). These items should be included in
the vocabulary of the GMSD.
Recommendations
contd.

The Hospitals and Health Care centres should be encouraged to
use specialty wound care products for faster healing and comfort
to the patients.

Awareness programmes need to be conducted for Medical and
Health professionals on regular basis.
Recommendations

Standards may be prescribed for nonwoven disposable to encourage
production of international standards medical disposable. AAMIPB
70/CEN standards for drapes and gowns;EN868-1 and EN868-2 for
sterilization wraps can be referred to.

Nonwoven as an option along with woven bandages and gauges
should be included in Schedule F-2 of Drugs and Cosmetic Act and
also in Indian Pharmacopoeia

In Indian Pharmacopoeia in addition to cotton and viscose other
manmade fibers like polyesters should also be included

Awareness about the latest medical textile products should be
created amongst Indian health personnel.
For more detail please contact
1. Dr. Arindam Basu, Director, SITRA
(Mob. No. 09790384532)
2. visit SITRA’s websites:
www.sitra.org.in
www.sitrameditech.org.in
3. Visit MOT website
www.texmin.nic.in
www.technotex.gov.in
Thank You