How exactly do healthcare staff play a part in the spread of microbes?
A. It is necessary to understand the complexity of clinical and patient care. In an average day healthcare staff undertake a range of tasks. Some essential yet simple tasks like helping patients become comfortable in bed can result in thousands of microbes being transferred onto the hands of staff. Taking a pulse or blood pressure results in transfer of equally large numbers of microbes. A quick squirt of alcohol handrub will destroy almost all of these potentially harmful microbes in a short time (15-30 seconds). An absence of hand hygiene at this point would mean that whichever patient the member of staff touches next would receive these microbes. Sometimes the microbes from patients will be transferred by staff onto the furniture or equipment in the immediate vicinity. This should not be a problem if there is good cleaning. However, the microbes can contaminate the hands of staff and then be spread to other patients if staff dont clean their hands.
