Got clean?

This is the Big Whopper coming at you with another whopper….

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/01/26/superbugs/

In short, this is supposed to be another miracle solution to clean hospital environments, this time in the shape of a sort of disinfecting roach bomb.

Note the bit where a member of the esteemed establishment in our main title is purporting that the current approach is scrubbing the rooms. An interesting approach, especially as of yet we have yet to see any scrubbing….or cleaning. In all the time we’ve spent in various parts of it, we’ve seen the partition curtains taken down and washed once. Once. And by the sounds of the staff opinions at the time,it was a big deal. Cleaning as it is usually understood is indeed in short supply there. Whether it is cleaning rooms between patients or while a patient is still in hospital, it is equally lacking. I remember when Big Mac was in hospital & threw up a bit in the bathroom sink. He couldn’t help it, the antibiotics he was given as a precaution were the same ones we told them he can’t take, his stomach can’t handle it anymore. That’s not the story…the story is that after 3 days that sink still had the detritus dried in it, until Big Mac’s mom noticed it & raised hell with housekeeping. Scrubbing indeed….

Now I have it on good word from a reliable contemporary source that this was not how it used to be. Rooms did indeed used to be scrubbed from top to bottom after a patient left, bed, table, nightstand, floor & even the walls scrubbed & bleached, bedlinens & dividing curtains taken down & laundered in the on-site hospital laundry….whereas the best we’ve ever seen was the ubiquitous disinfectant-soaked rag (‘cloth’ does it no justice) swiped at the most often touched surfaces. Nothing is actually cleaned let alone scrubbed. The leftover glue patches from tape gathering black dust & the ground-in dirt in other surfaces bear sad testimony.

The problem is that cleaning has become an oxymoron in the presence of antibacterial advancements….here’s why:

Disinfect: 1. clean (something) with a disinfectant in order to destroy bacteria

Clean: to make clean: as (1)   :  to rid of dirt, impurities, or extraneous matter 

But now it has become common place to disinfect without actually cleaning. And therein lies the crux of the problem. We now have reached the state of disinfected dirt. Is that clean? Is that hygienic? Is that acceptable ?

I find this new gas approach scary. What are they going to do now? instead of cleaning at all, just disinfect the room, dirt & all??

We are now back to pre-Semmelweiss times. Be afraid of having to go to the hospital, you might get sick & die from having caught an infection in hospital. Rooms aren’t cleaned, common areas aren’t cleaned, staff don’t wash their hands…pretty soon we’ll be back to 2 patients per bed.

But it’s for our own good. They are doing such a good job. They are improving every day. Such amazing innovations to keep hospitals up to date on cleanliness. Perhaps one day they will catch up with the sixties.

Poor Semmelweiss. Must be doing Immelmans in his grave by now….