DOCTORS and nurses should be forced to wear short sleeves all year round to stop the spread of germs in hospitals, infectious disease experts saywinter coats
With hand hygiene initiatives failing and the most recent study finding half of all doctors don’t wash their hands between patients, two of the country’s most pre-eminent infectious disease experts say short sleeves will cut hospital infection rateswinter jackets..
Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Laboratory Services director Professor Dominic Dwyer said Australia should follow the UK’s lead and ban long sleeves among hospital workers.
The proposal comes in the wake of damning findings by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care showing that many doctors were not washing hands between patients.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) banned long-sleeved shirts and coats from all hospitals in 2008 after an 18-month trial at a hospital reportedly halved rates of MRSA, which causes golden staph, and slashed rates of clostridium difficile by 60 per cent. In Australia, there are 6500 cases a year of golden staph infections, one in five of which lead to death.
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“Those sorts of policies are worth looking at,” Professor Dwyer said. “Things like clothing - white
Meanwhile, Frank Bowden, from the Australian National University and author of Gone Viral: The Germs That Share Our Lives, said a ban on long-sleeves would represent “a very logical first step for us to make in terms of better hand hygiene and better infection control.”
He predicted the suggestion would be met with opposition from doctors given their initial resistance to the now widespread disinfectant hand pumps used in hospitals.
“Everybody will find an excuse for not doing it,” Professor Bowden said. “But is this about us as health professionals and our convenience … or about (the protection of patients?).”
Restrictions were introduced in NSW last year on hospital staff wearing jewellery, nail polish and artificial nails. Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, a University of NSW infectious diseases expert, said while the idea was “excellent in theory” it would be difficult to implement.
Prof McLaws said there was only “low-grade evidence” that long sleeves could transmit bacteria.
A NSW Health spokesman said a long-sleeve ban was considered in 2009 but dismissed because of a lack of evidence that it would reduce infections.
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