Cross infection in hospitals has been a big problem and some years ago it was manifest in Wollongong. The medical profession knew that the only way to prevent it was to drum the need for frequent hand washing into staff, patients - and their visitors.
The answer to the problem was ridiculously simple. Finding a hand basin, water and a towel was side stepped when little pink bottles of hand sanitizer appeared. They were everywhere - in containers on ward walls - at the entrance and exit to lifts and stairs - and in many cases bracketted to the end of patients beds.
Infection rates dropped sharply - and the nation's hospitals became much safer places - but now a new danger has been added.
Staff at the Alfred hospital in Melbourne were dismayed to find that one of their patients had consumed several bottles of this hand sanitizer - which has an alcohol content. He recorded a blood alcohol level of 0.271, the equivalent of drinking twenty stubbies of beer.
He was also lucky to survive. The alcohol in hand sanitizer is ethanol - and at a rate of 66% - it is definitely poisonous to humans.
So - now we have a new problem in hospitals.
To keep infection rates down we need to keep sanitizer readily available, but at the same time we need to safeguard it from any alcoholic who may be in desperate need of a drink.
The obvious answer is to contain the bottle in some sort of cage so that it can not be removed. In that way, it can still deliver enough of a puff to enable hands to be sanitized.
One more problem for hospital managementto worry about - and an inevitable extra cost to be added to the already heavily burdened health system !
No comments:
Post a Comment