BLOODY WASTE
By Areta Manalu
Glucose level
Disposable barrel
Serial troponin
Straight in the bin
White cell counts and neutrophils
All bound for landfills
Blood culture
Bleak future
Coagulation profile and fibrinogen
Congratulations on your profit margin
Itraconazole
“I don’t care at all”
Erythroblast
Earth comes last
ON INSPIRATION
Blood collection tubes used to be made of glass and were reusable. These days, most of them are made of plastic and all for one-time use only. At the end of analysis, the blood samples would be filed for storage for a period, and then discarded. Often, unused tubes would be discarded due to expiry. This could happen due to overstocking or when staff do not rotate the stock when restocking. Mentioned in the poem are some common blood tests, the end destination of the samples and the impact to our environment and future.
ARETA MANALU
Areta Manalu completed her Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy and Visual Arts majors, at Australian Catholic University and Bachelor of Medical Science, Pathology major, at University of Technology Sydney. She works as a laboratory technician. Her favourite disciplines are Haematology, Microbiology and Histology. Her dream is to one day work in her own office deep in the basement of a hospital, where she would look down her microscope and analyse cells all day. She would name her microscope Gertrude.