Have I mentioned I'm not terribly assertive with medical professionals? Well, I'm not. I've got a milllllion opinions and demands and I'm more than willing to share them, just not with the actual nurse or doctor. I just hate the double-takes, exasperation and sometimes mild offense of a reaction I get those times I have womaned-up and asked a question and/or made a request.
So I am at once in awe/totally tense reading about these people, who have the nerve to ask doctors and nurses to do something they should have had the professional sense to already have done: wash their hands.
According to this, repeated studies show that healthcare workers wash up adequately about half the time. (Half!) Some hospitals post a hygiene rate of 20 percent. (Twenty percent!).
I know! Washing hands! The No. 1 way to cut down on those infections and viruses that are spread around hospitals and medical facilities! But I think we all know they DON'T always wash their hands -- the pediatrician coming in to do a check-up, the nurse readying my kid for another round of shots. I HAVE noticed that the sink sits there dry and unused, but of course I haven't said anything (wouldn't want to cause ill will).
Here's what's supposed to happen: National guidelines say they’re supposed to use alcohol-based hand rubs
or soap and warm water for at least 15 seconds before and after every
direct contact with a patient, with excretions, or with contaminated
surfaces or objects. And just putting on gloves isn't enough, the article says. They're supposed to wash their hands first and THEN put on the gloves, otherwise they contaminate the outside of the glove when putting it on.
In an effort to increase the hygiene rate, some hospitals across the country want you to ask. They've got posters, brochures, buttons, etc. saying "It's OK to ask," and hope to urge you to speak up when you don't see the nurses and doctors wash up before touching you.
That's exactly what Dalynn Morales did. The
33-year-old cancer patient at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in
Portland, Ore., noticed that a nurse failed to clean her hands before
adjusting Morales’ antibiotic line.
“I
said, ‘Could you please wash?’” Morales recalled, adding that the nurse
quickly complied. “I’m not sure if she felt insulted or not.”
We'll just skip over why we even have to ask, how it's not already automatic to walk into a room and straight to the sink. But now that I know it's OK, I wonder if I will. I'm trying to think how I would ask. Do you say: "Hey, mind washing up?" or "I read that I should be asking you to wash your hands," or ... how do you phrase it without getting them all pissy with you? Come on, give me the script.
Have you ever asked your doctor or nurse to wash their hands? What was the reaction?
