The next time you visit a hospital, don’t forget to ask the doctor/nurse if they washed their hands.
On May 5, World Hand Hygiene Day, World Health Organisation urged patients to be proactive and remind healthcare workers to disinfect their hands before touching them to avoid hospital acquired infections.
While healthy doctors and nurses may be immune to most bugs doing the rounds in hospitals, the patients, especially those with poor immunity, are at risk of contracting difficult-to-treat infections during their hospital stay.
“Most of the germs in hospitals and on health workers’ hands tend to be drug resistant. Patients in ICU are most vulnerable to hospital acquired infection,” says infectious disease specialist Dr V. Ramasubramanian.
If there is bacteria on the hands of a nurse changing a patient’s breathing tube or feeding tube, it is certain to cause infection as the germs go directly into the lungs or stomach, bypassing all the body’s defence mechanisms, he explains.
WHO in its campaign themed ‘Save Lives — Clean your Hands’ also chronicles doctors’ reactions to patients who asked if their hands were clean.
While docs across the world expressed anger, or said they were wearing gloves and did not need to wash up, when patients questioned them, patients in India and Bangladesh did not even muster the courage to pop the question.
Patients need to question nurses and doctors to encourage healthy habits,” Dr Ramasubramanian stresses.