Hygiene and your hospital
Categories: Money & work, Places to go, Health & safety
The online edition of the London Times reported this week on television's queens of clean, Aggie McKenzie and Kim Woodburn, visited Ealing Hospital, in West London, a unit that had the third worst rate of infection in the UK in 2003. Given that one patient in ten catches an infection in hospital, and that hospital-acquired infections kill about 5,000 people in England every year, the tone of this one-hour special is a little more serious than their usual romps. Though the program over covers only one hospital, what it found was both reassuring and shocking. Microbiologists could not find a trace of the MRSA that blighted Ealing's reputation. Preventive measures introduced since 2003, such as a wash-your- hands campaign and executive team walkabouts, have clearly worked. However, that didn't mean the hospital was clean. Aggie and Kim found toilet brushes encrusted with feces , containers of bloody dressings left exposed on corridors for hours , and a doctors' lounge that brought a new meaning to mess- room ("It's like a student flat"). One microbiologist found high levels of the bacteria Staphyloccus aureus all over the place, particularly on the bed tables that patients ate from, their lockers and telephones. This bacteria is one of the most common sources of infections in hospitals, and when it enters under the skin it can cause anything from a pimple to potentially fatal blood poisoning or pneumonia. These are the bugs that, when they become resistant to antibiotics, become MRSA. What was genuinely shocking in the program the apparent reluctance of some of the doctors and nurses to address the issue of cleanliness.
Microbiologists believe that by simply using an antimicrobial alcohol hand gel when people enter and leave a ward could cut infection rates by 50% at a stroke. Yet secret cameras placed in the hospital over one weekend revealed that 65 per cent of visitors, 55% of nurses and 93 per cent of doctors did not use the gel. In fact, the main message from the program is the one that health education experts have been pressing for years, but which clearly still hasn't sunk in. It's the really simple things, such as washing your hands, that can help to reduce hospital infection rates.
Do you think similar findings would be found in the U.S.? I don't: a recent study looked at who was most apt to wash their hands in the hospital. You guessed it: physicians were at the bottom of the list. This could be because many use rubber gloves, but it is still not too reassuring if the leader of medical teams don't set an example. What do you think?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
ann adams 8-28-2006 @ 5:21PM
I think it's my day for links to ancient history.
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignace-Philippe_Semmelweis&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dignace%2Bsemmelweiss%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26rls%3DGGGL,GGGL:2006-11,GGGL:en
This man went insane trying to convince doctors of the same thing. Does nothing ever change?
Ignore the grammar. It's a translation by someone unfamiliar with English pronouns.
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sungoddess 8-28-2006 @ 5:48PM
Well I spent the night in the local Third World Hospital last week, and I refused to sit on the toilet seat. I am going to try and get some anti-bacterial wipes so I can wipe the seat when I go into labour and have to be admitted, and get some of the waterless anti-bacterial gel... cause I know these things, and it freaks me out personally.
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Christina 8-28-2006 @ 6:28PM
As someone who is studying to become a nurse, it doesn't surprise me, yet I still find it disgusting. I can't understand why a health professional wouldn't want to wash their hands between patients. It's not just about spreading germs between patients - I also don't want to become sick from anything a patient might have!
Some complain because soap is so drying on their hands, but many of these new alcohol gels have aloe and other moisturizers in them, and I like them because they leave my hands feeling even softer.
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Judi 8-28-2006 @ 9:32PM
My Mom was terminally ill and we were there every single day with her. Right up until the end. The only people I noticed who washed there hands were the nurses and us. Inever saw a Doctor wash his hands. And believe me I paid attention to everything that went on in that room. I loved my Mom dearly but I never went without washing my hands after touching her. They had a container ouside the room on the wall so it was convenient. So I clearly understand how infections spread. It's truly sad especially with the prices we pay to stay in these Hospitals. It's bad enough to be sick but to end up with something you didn't go in with is a tragedy to say the least.
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Judi 8-28-2006 @ 9:33PM
My Mom was terminally ill and we were there every single day with her. Right up until the end. The only people I noticed who washed there hands were the nurses and us. Inever saw a Doctor wash his hands. And believe me I paid attention to everything that went on in that room. I loved my Mom dearly but I never went without washing my hands after touching her. They had a container ouside the room on the wall so it was convenient. So I clearly understand how infections spread. It's truly sad especially with the prices we pay to stay in these Hospitals. It's bad enough to be sick but to end up with something you didn't go in with is a tragedy to say the least.
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sasha sumner 8-28-2006 @ 11:22PM
Why don't the hospitals just hire someone specifically to wipe down the door handles, table trays etc. on a regular basis? Use an antimicrobial alcohol based spray! Since it's been proven that people won't learn to clean their own hands, why not pay the small price of a preventative measure rather than the larger price of deaths caused by unneccesary infection.
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Vicki RN -ICU 8-29-2006 @ 8:16PM
As a critical care nurse, I see phyicians everyday who don't wash their hands or use the alcohol gels. At the hospital where I work, the nurses will chase down the doctors who don't wash up and squirt the gel into their hands for them. It truly is a problem and one that hospitals everywhere are working to correct. My hospital has organized special teams to educate and remind not only other nurses and physicians, but also family members and visitors as well. Too often we see family members or other visitors who come to the hospital with coughs, runny noses, or reeking of cigarette smoke or alcohol. We should all be washing our hands more, but we should all be mindful of the other ways we can make patients even sicker.
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sandy gart 8-29-2006 @ 8:20PM
went to YALE HOSPITAL BEST DOCTOR NEVER WASHED HANDS GOT INFECTION NINE MONTHS WITH 3 HOLES IN STOMACHE THEY REFUSED TO CLOSE HAD HIP REPLACED HOSPITAL FOR JOINT DISEASES BEST DOCTOR HEAD OF WHOLW DEPT SENT ME HOME WITH A STAPH INFECTION HE ADMITTED IT HAD TO SEE MY OWN DOCTOR FOR I MONTH TO TRY AND GET RID OF STAPH OPERATING DOCTOR SAID HE THOUGHT IT WOULD GO AWAY BY ITSELF THAT A GREAT DOCTOR HE SHOULD ONLY GET IT AND SUFFER
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Dee 8-29-2006 @ 8:21PM
My local hospital routinely forgives bills for patients who develope in house infections that cause harm. Staff infections and medication mistakes are common enough to warrant a lot of people to beg amublance crews to take them somewhere else or they refuse to be transported altoghter.
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Laura 8-29-2006 @ 8:24PM
Three of the 4 members of my family had MRSA that required surgery that we contracted from our family doctor's office. They denied it of course! It is spreading like wildfire throughout the US according to the doctor's that treated us in Houston in 2003. If you don't think it could happen here, you're just in denial.
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Orchyde 8-29-2006 @ 8:26PM
I was infected with MRSA after having a kidney operation. It was in the actual incision. I survived the infection by taking extremely strong doses of antibiotics that you can take only once in your lifetime. If I ever get the infection again there is nothing they can do. I will always be "MRSA postitive" and whenever I do go to the hospital everyone must take precautions. They must wear hospital gowns, gloves, and masks. They also have to wash their hands before and after they come into the room. I can only leave the room when I am wearing a gown, gloves, and a mask also. I have to have my own disposable hospital equiptment. Its not fun let me tell you. You feel like a leper. Think about it where do people go when they get sick thats right the hospital so its crawling with germs.
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bd 8-29-2006 @ 8:26PM
What many people are not familiar with are the many types of bacteria which are NORMAL FLORA or which may be opportunistic bacteria. Many of these stories are really hype b/c the patient in an immunocompromised state already has enough old viruses (encluding Epstein-Barr, etc) and bacteria that reside normally in their respiratory tracts, skin etc. to kill them anyway. Google "normal bacterial flora" and you will come away more enlightened. And may even discover some people naturally carry the 'DREADED' Staph aureus.
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alien help don't know or care 8-29-2006 @ 8:31PM
excuse me, but i am a nurse and i and all the nurses i work with wash our hands until they almost bleed. we do it for the patients but even more so for ourselves and our families. if you ask me, the problem is with the noneducated, don't really care-- housekeepers. i have watched them for 20 years in the hospital- they will use the same mop to mop all the rooms-nasty- just spreading germs everywhere. i just hate it when they put their gloves on (to protect themselves of coarse) and clean an infectious room, then come out of the room with the same dirty gloves on and insist on using the nurses phone at the desk- i have screamed at them many times and they keep doing this-disgusting!! many are hispanic or black with very little education and do not take pride in their work and don't realize the dangers they lie in their hands when they don't clean properly. all the hand washing won't help a darn thing if the housekeepers are spreading the crap all over the place-everything is then contagious and you can't wear gloves 100% of the time.
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Linda Albright 8-29-2006 @ 8:33PM
Not only hospital born infections can be a danger but long term care settings are also high infection sites. The facility where I currently work often has no paper towels for staff to dry their hands on after washing. There is also seldom soap available at the sinks so what are we supposed to wash with? The super germ is alive and well and living in all hospitals and long term care settings. All visitors then carry this germ out into the community with everything they touch.
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Barbara 8-29-2006 @ 8:34PM
What most of these articles neglect to mention is that the introduction of "antibacterial" soaps and cleaners play a role in creating supervirus and resistant bateria. Simple washing with a plain liquid soap and use of alcohol is sufficient in most cases to kill germs. People will believe whatever is pushed before them on television and in the media. Profit-mongering has created an over-drugged, sterile society that is prime for epidemic because the average person's resistance to natural flora is low or non-existent.
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carlene 8-29-2006 @ 8:35PM
I've called hospitals germ factorys for quite sometime. It's just basic common sense to wash one's hands after going to the bathroom, when cooking washing hands after handling meat products AND not when thru putting a meal together but directly after handing meat before going to the next step be it turning on stove, opening the fridge ie: touching any thing else. Hands dry? Use a moisterizing lotion after washing hands. Come on Doc, I thought you were educated.
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MaryAnnBurden 8-29-2006 @ 8:38PM
What a fitting time to have this on the computer. My husband just got out of the hospital from a hip replacement surgery and what i saw i hope to God that i never have to go into this hospital ever. The first room he was in was perfectly clean, but like others. i saw the nurses use the antibacterial solution that was as you come and go from the room. I never once saw any one use gloves but maybe a couple of nurses and the Dr.s never used the bacterial solution. Another room that he was put in, was absalutely the mustiest smelling room that i have ever been in. After i walked past the bathroom i knew why. There were stacks of wet towels laying on top of the bathroom sink, pillows everywhere, the bed had been changed thank God, but i know that room had to have not been cleaned. So i would say that this is a good beginning for bacteria, wouldn,t you. Sad to say, after the surgery, he got an infection, and no one is saying what the infection was, but he was one very sick man for 4 to 5 days. High temp. and blood count went way down. Red and white cells. He was int he hospital for 12 days and when he went home, his blood count was still down. But what i am saying is, i think that somewhere or wherever he got an infection from the staff, the help, the nurses the Dr,s. whoever. I hear this from several people that this has happened and they say that it happens in every hospital. So what is one to do. We have a town with 2 very nice hospitals, so it seems as though if you are very sick or just going in as an outpatient, that you have no choice but to go to one or the other. If you read this, you may edit it or print the whole thing it makes no difference to me. Just upset as to the conditions in this particular hospital. Thank You for listening,
Mary Ann from Ohio
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Lori 8-29-2006 @ 8:39PM
Why don't the doctors in hospitals wash up?? Two simple words: "God Complex" They can barely fit through the damn doors with their egos, how dare we mere mortals ask them to lowetr themselves to our level by washing their hands?!?! The next time I am hospitalized or one of my family members is, I will not hesitate to tell the doctor to wash his or her hands before touching the patient.
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W. Lima 8-29-2006 @ 8:42PM
On 7/31/2006, I was in the hospital and had a double by-pass. The nurses all wore rubber gloves. The person who cleaned our rooms, never wiped off my bedside table one time, but I remember when they did, a long time ago, they used the same dirty rag in every room. The doctors, never once did I see them wash their hands. I am home now, and taking care of myself. Thank God. But I still use an alcohol gel on my hands several times a day, and washing them several times a day with soap and water, besides. I know how dangerous this can be.
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t 8-29-2006 @ 8:42PM
Cleanliness? I know why these Doctors aren't washing up...they are too busy asking the nurse on call for his nightly "hug"....(overheard in the ER) and NO I don't mean every Doc. Just the one I was lucky enough to encounter one evening in Florida.
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