Avoiding Infections in Hospitals
Many lives have been saved at hospitals.
But, as one infectious disease doctor points out, hospitals can also
make people sick. Hospitals are a hotbed of infections, and it's
essential that a visitor or a patient do all they can to stop disease
from spreading.
Infection Control
Every year, 20 million people in the U.S. catch norovirus, which causes
vomiting and diarrhea. This disease spreads at a fast pace as billions
of virus particles are released and all, it really takes to infect us
are just a couple dozen strands. Hospitals have generally found a way to
avoid these problems. They have identified potential infectious
patients quickly and such patients are isolated. They are put in rooms
where the airflow cannot infect others if their infection is airborne.
Gloves, masks, eye shields are used to avoid a patient transmitting
infections to others.
But, what more can a patient or a visitor do to keep disease from
spreading:
1. Wash your hands
Using soap and water, or a hand sanitizer
with 60% alcohol, reduces spreading or catching infections. This should
be done before and after seeing a patient. It's something that's easy,
but also easy to forget.
2. Don't touch your face
We tend to touch our face a lot, possibly even 15 times an hour. This
spreads bugs from our hands to our nose and to our mouth, spreading
fecal-oral and respiratory bugs from diarrhea illnesses to colds.
3. Be vaccinated
Patients are hospitalized because their
immune systems cannot handle any other infections. Bear in mind that
what may be a touch of the flu to you may be something that another
cannot fight off. There are times when healthcare workers spread
vaccinable infections to their patients, so it is important that we are
vaccinated, ensuring that we protect the most vulnerable.
4. Stay Home if ill
If you are ill, avoid visiting patients. If you cannot, make sure that
sneezes are covered with a tissue paper or upper sleeve.
Other steps that you can take to reduce risk to healthcare workers and
yourself:
Each year, about 385,000 healthcare professionals are pricked by a
needle or another sharp object. This means that the risk of HIV,
Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, or other diseases is possible, albeit low. It
is also a risk that no one should have to take. You can help further by
doing the following:
5. Never get in a nurse's way
Needle stick risks for nurses and doctors
rise with distractions. Medical professionals need to concentrate and
shouldn't answer questions when they are doing a procedure.
6. Sharps Boxes:
If it says, Don't Touch, don't touch
Within each room of any major hospital is a box or wastebin designed for sharp objects like needles and scalpels. This protects maintenance
personnel and everyone. Sometimes someone with throw something into a
sharps bin. But needles don't compress, they can stick you instead.
7. Antibiotic Resistance
Bacteria have been fought off with
antibiotics since 1928, but doctors and scientists have since watched
bacteria reclaim their turf. They seem to have an assortment of genes
that resist antibiotics. If we can reduce infections and antibiotic
usage, we can reduce the drug resistance that develops.
8. Antibiotics: Take as needed and prescribed, only
When it comes to antibiotics bear in mind that if you do need them, you
need them, and if you don't, then you don't. If you do need them then
you need to take the full amount prescribed. Antibiotic over-usage (and
under-usage) leads to resistance and other infections that grow when
other bacteria are wiped out with antibiotics.
9. Extra Infection Control
We need to be cautious of not only visible
infection but bugs we unknowingly carry, including drug-resistant
bacteria. So take extra precautions by washing your hands regularly when
visiting patients carrying such infections.