The Health Ministry has denied it endangered patients at public hospitals by reusing single-use medical devices.

Health Ministry director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah was responding to a Free Malaysia Today report which claimed that this was being practised at public hospitals due to budget constraints.

Noor Hisham said all consumables and single-use medical devices utilised for patients with blood-borne diseases are disposed of after being used.

However, he said there are certain single-use medical devices that can be used after being cleansed through proper procedures and are governed by specific guidelines.

"There are some single-use medical devices that are used more than once, whereby it has to undergo reprocessing via thorough cleansing and sterilisation processes before it can be reused for few times...