Adhesive Dressings & Plasters Australia | Island

Adhesive & Island Dressings

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Adhesive & Island Dressings

Adhesive dressings, plasters, wound strips and island dressings for workplaces, clinics, aged care facilities and first aid providers across Australia.

What an island dressing is

An island dressing is an absorbent pad set in the middle of an adhesive backing, so the pad covers the wound and the adhesive sticks only to intact skin around it. That is the whole point: the wound bed never contacts adhesive. It makes them the standard post-operative and minor-wound dressing, because they are a complete dressing in one piece with no separate tape required.

Choose a dressing where the pad is larger than the wound in every direction, and the adhesive border sits entirely on undamaged skin. If adhesive touches the wound edge it will strip the new epithelium at the next change.

Product Types

Fabric plasters: flexible fabric backing, supplied in strips and assorted sizes. Conform well to knuckles, fingers and joints.
Plastic plasters: waterproof options, for wet work and washing.
Spot plasters: round, for small wounds and needle sites.
Island dressings: an absorbent pad with an adhesive border, in post-op and general sizes.
Detectable plasters: blue and metal-detectable, used in food handling so a lost plaster can be found.

Food handling and workplace first aid

Food premises use blue detectable plasters so that one coming loose is both visible against food and picked up by a metal detector. Keep them separate from your general first aid stock so staff reach for the right one. Workplace first aid kits are required to be maintained and restocked, so check expiry on sterile items when you audit the kit rather than only when something runs out.

Skin and removal

On fragile or ageing skin, a silicone-adhesive dressing or a non-adherent pad held with a retention bandage causes less damage than a standard acrylic adhesive. Remove any adhesive dressing low and parallel to the skin rather than pulling upwards, and support the skin behind the peel.

These are for minor wounds. Deeper wounds, wounds that will not stop bleeding, and wounds showing signs of infection should be assessed by a qualified clinician.

Stocked brands include FastAid, Bodichek, Leukoplast, Nexcare and Bpositive. Check individual product pages for sizes, sterility and box quantities.