The idea of transfer of germs and bugs through such practices clearly escapes the grasp of those involved.\u00a0 It is often impressed on visitors how important it is to wash\/clean hands on entering wards and this is exactly right, but hospital staff should have much higher standards that include the right attitude towards clothing.<\/p>\n
However, the above is nothing compared to one of the worst practices I\u2019ve regularly seen happen \u2013 a complete disregard for how infection can be spread through the transfer from the curtains surrounding each of the beds on the wards.<\/p>\n
Visitors constantly brush up against these curtains with their clothes, the patients touch them, everybody touches them.\u00a0 Now think carefully about the main people who touch them \u2013 the nurses who attend the patients many times a day.<\/p>\n
If they have just cleaned up a patient or re-dressed an infected wound, those nurses will push back the curtains with the soiled gloves still on their hands, transferring bacteria and the like to the curtains.<\/p>\n
Worse still is that the next time they attend that same patient, nurses put on rubber gloves BEFORE closing the curtains, which immediately stops the gloves being sterile and risks passing on infection to the patient.\u00a0 If this isn\u2019t the cause of the majority of patient infections I\u2019d be very surprised.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all disgusted at the cut-backs enforced on the NHS by this current government, particularly when the majority of us have been paying for it through our National Insurance contributions, but this is not an excuse for a mind-set that cannot make the connections that lead to infection transfer this way.<\/p>\n
Being in hospital is hard.\u00a0 Working in hospital is hard.\u00a0 But thinking about hygiene should be natural for all of us.<\/p>\n
Please be cleaner in your thinking.<\/p>\n
Regards,
\nSteve Ince
\nEast Yorkshire<\/p>\n
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