Should Doctors and nurses wash their hands after entering your room?

[aprilgail2]

Originally posted by princess lovers mom

and just a note... you should wash your hands after you leave the hospital or Dr. office as you could pick up germs from seats, doorhandles etc...

I carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with me when I go and as soon as we are out of the door I am pouring it all over my daughters hands!

 

[6_Time_Momma]

I usually wash my hands AFTER I am done with one patient and then I move on to the next. If there is a break between patient care, I wash (or now it is the "purell" type hand sanitizer) as I enter the room. Most of the time, though I am wearing gloves as I render patient care due to the nature of the care and what they call "universal precautions". That essentially means always wearing gloves when handling bodily fluids.( Yuck, that sounds so gross when I type it! Maybe a little TMI!)

Ditto to what Princess Dot said.

 

[Judy from Boise]

all health care providers should put on clean gloves after entering a patient's room and remove them before they leave that patient's room.

No, they shouldn't. Healthcare providers know when to glove up, and if you are only touching intact skin handwashing is perfectly adaquate and doesn't drive up costs unneccisarily.

Like another poster mentioned, in my hospital the hand gel is right outside each room, I use going in and coming out.....but the patient would not observe that.

 

[KristaTX]

I am a nurse, and I did not mean that gloves are always required with every patient interaction. I meant that if gloves are necessary they should be put on in the current patient's room and removed in that same room.

 

[DocRafiki]

Of course they should (wash them, but not necessarily IN the room)! I wash mine in "the back" before going in a room, even though there are sinks in the exam rooms. Somebody asked me to wash my hands in front of them recently, but I find it awkward, like I'm being watched, and rushed. So now I finish wiping my hands w/the paper towel as I walk into the room and throw it away in the exam room trash. It's so silly how much effort we put into appearances rather than what's really important.

And yes there is an excuse for not using the water-free sanitizers. For me, it's ECZEMA. Those things STING!

We also have this "liquid glove" lotion that acts as a shield against the buggers... even mites! Very cool, and it's one of the few lotions I've used that moisturizes, isn't greasy, and doesn't burn.

 

[Pop Daddy]

no, who knows where anybodys hands have been, just deal with the germs

 

[goodstarr]

I wash my hands before entering a patient's room and after I leave the room (mainly because I feel the nurse's desk's sink is cleaner than my patient's rooms). And, studies have shown that the waterless hand sanitizers that are installed in hospitals are better for killing germs than soap and water.

 

[Alex]

The more I think about this thread it has me laughing..
It's like a control thing.. most people would really have no clue if the nurse or doctor was giving you the right dose of medicine or giving the correct treatment so we have to just take that on faith..but we can make SURE they wash their hands before they OD us on some medicine or kill us with a wrong diagnosis...
I mean if I am trusting them to treat me properly I'd like to think they could follow basic sanitation rules.. if not why the heck am I letting them treat me in the first place!

 

[DocRafiki]

Alex -- exactly!!