Hospitals - Page 4

Margaret Pilkington · 23-09-2005, 14:48

When patients are discharged the bed and the locker and the chart holders are washed with detergent and dried before being made up with fresh linen.
This does not happen in all hospitals........some hospitals only wash down the bed frame and the mattress if there has been a spillage of body fluids.

Electrical equipment is decontaminated before servicing or repair.

I don't know if there are any checks on the ventilation system, but it stands to reason that if the ventilation system is linked from all the wards, then there must be a possibility of bacteria finding their way into the system and being spread in this manner - unless there are some ventilation engineers out there who can tell me any different. Viruses do not survive outside the body, but bacteria can be airborne.
The single bedded wards in some areas have some kind of 'reverse air flow' that is supposed to stop the spread of infection by this route......though I am not sure how this works.

lettie · 23-09-2005, 15:50

I don't know how the ventilation systems work either Margaret but I would certainly second all of your suggestions. It will always be physically impossible to protect everybody from every bacteria. Nobody can control the bugs which are floating around outside. It would be brilliant if we had some sort of control over them in hospitals. As you said though, it would be expensive, inconvenient, would require planning and would cock up some of the government targets. Those inconveniences do not matter to me and would not matter to the general public if they were told how important those measures were to protect them.

I bet they would matter to the government though. In my opinion they have brought this on themselves by trying to run healthcare on a shoestring and employing too many chiefs and not enough indians....

SPUGGIE J · 23-09-2005, 15:52

Crikey I thought a little banter would come from this thread but instead its education and a first hand front line report. For what has been said the nurses aint paid enough for the grief they get from management and the public. To think the govenment thinks they can sort the NHS well to that I answer "if they can fix the NHS then I am the nxt King of a free Scotland" ie 2 chances a cat in hells chance and no chance.

Margaret Pilkington · 23-09-2005, 19:10

Whew....! that's a relief......I logged on thinking that I would be shot to bits over my suggestions.......but they make sense to me. It will take some REAL radical changes to get to grips with the situation and to bolster the confidence of the general public......but they NEED to see action......and they need to see it NOW.

These things cannot be done on a shoestring, but they can be done.

SPUGGIE J · 24-09-2005, 18:54

There are bits kicking around on the news that some NHS trusts are in financial trouble and are freezing staff higherings. Why dont the rid themselves of overpaid underworked business suited target loving beaurocrats and get some more hard working angels in. You could get quite a few nurses for the pay packet of some executives and we could put the care of patients back were it belongs ie the doctors and nurses. Maybe then we can get back a health service that is not treated as a loss making business!!!

Margaret Pilkington · 24-09-2005, 21:37

Yes, it appears that one third of all hospitals are going to have to close facilities to try to balance their budgets.....what about targets that the government are so keen on.....well, they won't be met that is for sure and waiting times for operations are bound to rise.
Market forces in the Health service do not work....people are not tins of beans!

lettie · 25-09-2005, 15:50

Many targets and government initiatives require extra money. In order to meet the government requirements experienced nurses and midwives are often taken from frontline work to help set up new services, but they are not replaced. This leaves wards and departments very short staffed. Usually the money to provide new services is nowhere near enough and most hospitals are running on very tight budgets. This government are patting themselves on the back, saying that they have provided so many thousands of extra nurses. Those numbers of registered nurses in this country are very misleading. They include nurses who are still on the register but retired or recently emigrated. They also do not differentiate between who is full time and who is part time. The majority of my colleagues are part time and it is extremely difficult to cover shifts when 5 out of 7 people in your team are only working 20 hours a week....

SPUGGIE J · 25-09-2005, 16:02

Lettie that sounds more like a warzone than a hospital service how on earth do you maintain your standards in them conditions? It still seems to me to be badly run and the nurses and doctors are suffering as well. If it was me the international sighn of up yours would be aimed at the buffons who think everything is rosie
Can you be sure they are not sneaking into the drugs while use are being worked into the ground?