Tips to prevent infection

According to Life Fourways Hospital, Life Healthcare takes infection prevention seriously. It is a key priority, and to ensure the highest standards of its comprehensive, well-entrenched infection prevention programme is aligned with evidence-based international best practices.

The easiest and most important method to prevent the transfer of bacteria is effective hand hygiene. All healthcare workers, patients and hospital visitors should practise good hand hygiene.

Hand hygiene is the cornerstone of infection prevention and patient safety, and while this is vital in Life Healthcare facilities, it is equally important at home, work and in the community. Hygiene measures are all-important yet often undervalued.

Here are the three questions you should be able to answer, according to Life Fourways Hospital:

1. Why is hand washing so important?

The hands are one of the most significant contributors to cross-contamination and cross-infection in the home and hospital.

2. When should you wash your hands?

• Before: Eating or feeding children. Touching your nose, eyes or mouth. Touching your nose, eyes or mouth. Applying contact lenses and giving medication or first aid.
• After: Using the toilet or changing a child’s nappy. Handling pets and domestic animals. Contact with blood or body fluids. Coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose. Contact with a potentially contaminated site and after Touching hospital surfaces such as bed rails and door handles.
• Before and after: Handling raw food, tending to someone who is sick, whenever hands appear dirty

3. How should you wash your hands?

Wet your hands, apply soap, rub hands together to form a lather, rub all over the top of your hands, between fingers and around and under fingernails and r inse your hands well.

Recent studies show that 60 per cent of South Africans do not wash their hands properly after using the toilet and 66% of South Africans do not wash their hands with soap. A five-second splash under water may make your hands appear cleaner and remove any visible dirt, but it’s not really effective in getting rid of the harmful germs on your hands that can cause infection, especially at critical moments, after using the toilet, after cleaning a child and before handling food. Lastly, 75 per cent of illnesses in homes can be prevented by using hygiene products and maintaining good hygiene habits such as handwashing.

A 2005–2007 study by Professor Eugene C Cole in the Western Cape found that the following can be prevented through good hygiene habits:

• 80 per cent of gastrointestinal infections (including vomiting and diarrhoea)
• 70 per cent of respiratory infections (including colds, flu and ear infections)
• 70per cent of skin infections (abscesses, boils, eczema, impetigo, ringworm, scabies and pink eye).

Did you know?

In hospital, patients with contagious diseases will be isolated to prevent the spread of the disease/infection. It is vital that all healthcare workers, as well as visitors, adhere to the precautionary measures prescribed.

Related Article: 

https://www.citizen.co.za/fourways-review/310952/310952/