Squeaky clean day
OLIVEDALE–Netcare Olivedale Hospital educated people about the importance of hand hygiene.
Netcare Olivedale Hospital hosted international hand wash day to raise awareness and motivate everybody to wash their hands.
The hospital hosted an initiative to promote the significance of the day. Infection prevention practitioner Graziella Bartman said that she has been in her profession over 30 years and practicing at the hospital for 15 years.
“This day symbolises raising awareness about how important it is to practise hand hygiene in hospital and at home too. Personal hygiene entails washing your hands before and after meals, bathroom use and regularly throughout the day. We demonstrated this by putting glitter bug cream on their hands. We then put their hands in a glitter bug box with an ultraviolet lens to detect germs. After their hands were washed we placed their hands in the box to see how well they washed their hands,” said Bartman.
She also said patients and hospital visitors risk infecting each other unknowingly, by bringing in germs from the outside.
“I recommend that people use alcohol hand gel to keep their hands clean, even after they have washed their hands. Making use of wet wipes is also a great alternative to use on trolleys and other surfaces,” explained Bartman.
Caitlyn Cooper who is seven years old participated in the initiative. She said that she believes it is important to wash your hands, in order to get rid of all the germs, otherwise the germs will stay on your hands. Cooper added that she enjoyed learning about keeping her hands clean.
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