Washing hands in hospital may spreads disease

It is no doubt that washing hand is an easy way to prevent infection, especially if along with soap.

But washing your hands in hospitals can actually make you more likely to pick up infections, according to one of Britain’s leading bacteriologists.

Prof Hugh Pennington said hospital taps were often crawling with dangerous germs.

He said money needed to be spent urgently to replace hand taps with automatic infra-red systems to stop staff, patients and visitors picking up viruses.

Professor Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said the automatic wash basins were now common in slaughterhouses but not hospitals.

"The technology has been around for a long time but it would make a significant difference to controlling infections in hospitals," he said. "They do this in airports – even in slaughterhouses – but for some reason not in enough hospitals. It seems crazy.

"It is important that hands do not get re-contaminated. But using hand taps - which have been touched by hundreds of people - you may end up catching more bugs than before you washed your hands.

"It strikes me that hospitals are taking a devil of a time over this. Of course it would cost money but it would be worth it.”

Via - Telegraph

Categories: Health and Medicine