Medical scrubs and healthcare uniforms: fabrics, minimums and costs

Survive thermal disinfection. Hospital laundry runs at 71–75°C for at least three minutes, often with chlorine-based detergent. Fabric, thread, labels and any decoration have to hold colour and shape through that, hundreds of times.

Be comfortable for a twelve-hour shift. Breathable, with enough stretch to bend and lift, and light enough not to add heat under a gown or apron.

Be identifiable. Colour-coding by role — nurses one colour, doctors another, porters a third — is standard in most hospitals, which means an order carries several colours and each has to match its reorder exactly.

Be clean-looking. Dark colours hide marks but read as unclinical; most hospitals specify mid-tones — ceil blue, navy, teal, wine, hunter green — in fabrics that resist staining.

Scrub fabric is bought for the order rather than held in stock. A fabric order has its own minimum — usually enough for about 100 garments — and a size range in scrubs runs wider than in fashion, from XS to 4XL, so a small order spreads thinly across sizes. At 100 pieces the fabric minimum is met and every size has enough pieces to cut efficiently.

Within the 100, the standard scrub colours — ceil blue, navy, wine, teal, black and the rest of the stock range — can be split at 30 per colour. A ward order of 40 ceil blue, 30 navy and 30 wine is one 100-piece order. A colour outside the range is a custom dye lot of 300 pieces.

Scrub tops: V-neck with a reinforced neckline, chest pocket, side vents, and a pen slot on the pocket. Pants: elastic and drawstring waist, cargo pocket, and a hem that can be taken up. Bar-tacks at every stress point. Seams overlocked and topstitched so they survive the tumble.

Decoration: an embroidered hospital or department logo on the chest, small and tonal or in a contrast thread, plus a woven label with the size and care instructions rated for 75°C. Names by embroidery for senior staff. No prints — they do not survive thermal disinfection.

Labelling by role and size is where a hospital laundry saves hours. We can label by department colour, add size tags visible from the hanger, and pack by ward.

From our current rate sheet, a poly-cotton poplin scrub set — top and pants — in a Pantone-matched colour with an embroidered logo quotes around $14–18 per set at 100 sets, falling to $11–14 at 500. Stretch poly-spandex sets $20–26. Antimicrobial finish adds roughly $1.50 per set. Lab dips for each colour are a one-off cost.

A 200-bed hospital with 400 clinical staff at two sets each is 800 sets — a first order in the $10,000–14,000 range and a replacement cycle at 40–50% of that annually. The calculator prices stock-garment orders live; scrubs are quoted against your specification because the fabric is bought for the job.

We manufacture scrubs and healthcare uniforms for hospitals, clinics, labs and dental practices in Pakistan, and export them to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where hospital groups buy in volume and specify by Pantone and fabric standard. Everything is cut, sewn, embroidered and packed in our own unit in Lahore, with fabric sourced to the specification and wash-tested on the sample.

Minimum 100 sets, 30 per colour. First orders 14–18 working days after sample approval, allowing for the fabric order; reorders faster. Sample sets in the correct sizes are produced for wear and wash testing before bulk.