Other

W Mark Shields

Jack W Shields

Containers for sterile gloves having long cuffs folding over the palms, leaving the fingers exposed beyond, are disclosed such that, upon opening, only the crease of each long cuff/palm overfold can be manually grasped. In one preferred embodiment, sterile containers initially covered with removable film are designed with single openings covered by slit film to dispense multiple surgical or examination gloves. Inside the containers, the overfolded cuffs of successive gloves are folded under the flexed fingers of the first and every succeeding glove, such that the user can serially extract externally sterile gloves by grasping the crease of each long cuff/palm overfold. One bare hand grasps the crease to glove the other. Then, the ungloved hand grasps the crease of the next glove, such that the fingers of the gloved hand can be inserted under the cuff/palm overfold to glove the bare hand. As results, the external surfaces of each extracted glove are never touched by a bare finger or any other contaminated object before use on a patient. Such containers can dispense specified numbers of examination or surgical gloves. In another embodiment, multiple pairs of surgical or examination gloves, each pair with thumbs apposed toward the palms, can be dispensed with the palms touching in separate sterile envelopes, each of which unseals to expose only the creases of the cuff overfolds. Such sterile envelopes can be boxed separately or in rolls from which each package is easily separated.

Overfolded sterile glove dispensers

We disclose dispensers for sterile finger cots without rolled bases, but having biased bases; and for sterile conventional examination gloves having short cuffs with beaded rolled bases. The invention enables users to extract each cot and each glove from a sterile sealed envelope without contaminating the leading external portions of any finger cot or any glove; and enables easy removal of each finger cot or glove without the user touching any likely-to-be contaminated external surface by any finger after appropriate use. Such dispensers for finger cots and gloves can supply multiples, each enclosed in a a sealed envelope which manually opens to expose only the biased base of each contained cot or opens on a bias which exposes only the beaded rolled base and proximal part of each short glove cuff. The object is to sustain the highest level of sterility conveniently possible during the use of gloves or finger cots for protecting patients and users from cross-infections.

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Santa Barbara, CA, United States of America

W Mark Shields