Never
Overlook Hygiene in a Care Facility
Soumya Nair
The
phrase “respect your elders” is ingrained in most minds. This phrase, however,
has been lost its sheen over the years and a recent visit to ‘Aseervatham’
endorses it. ‘Aseervatham’ claims to
be a care home for elders and it was sort of a first time experience for me of
what all things can go wrong in a care home.
You cannot compare it with a pigsty as pigsty gets cleaned everyday. It was a shock to me that children have no
qualms in admitting their parents to such care homes overlooking the unhygienic
conditions. The inmates, who need help to
do even the most mundane of daily tasks, are often disregarded and left in
unsanitary conditions for long periods of time. Who bothers? Remember, cleanliness is an attitude.
Life
threatening conditions can develop when care homes do not keep up with their
sanitation needs. When germs and bacteria spread, vulnerable elders can be
affected in a negative way. This is especially important because these infirm
elders are most likely to have medical conditions that, along with poor
hygiene, can wreck havoc on their health.
It
is of utmost importance that care facilities maintain high standards of cleanliness and personal
hygiene for all their residents. Poor hygiene in a care facility can often be a
cause of serious health complications for the patients living there. This can
be especially dangerous for patients suffering with debilitating diseases such
as cancer – where even something as simple as a cold can lead to massive
medical complications. Moreover, the bacteria and germs all over the place can
also affect the senior citizens under care, compromising their immunity, which
will exasperate their medical complication. The increasing age of elder
patients further inhibits their body’s ability to counter such diseases.
Most
infections prevalent among care home residents are attributed to poor hygienic
conditions. Moreover, nurses and other staff members neglect providing optimal
care such as changing bandages, diapers, etc. on time, which is something that
can also lead to medical emergencies.
Lack of hygiene and sanitation can cause them to suffer preventable diseases
that could be avoided by the nursing home that practices proper hygiene.
In many cases, the reason why a nursing home might not be putting the
appropriate attention to hygiene is because of a lack of staff or resources to
keep up with this important daily task.
The
care home’s staff often fails to recognize the importance of hygiene given
their lack of training and basic awareness. Many times, due to understaffing,
employees may come under excess workload and may simply forget to carry out
their necessary duties to ensure they provide professional care when it comes
giving patients a bath, serving them food, etc. For example, not washing hands
can lead to numerous problems such as infection and other types of problems
that sensitive patient will not be able to bear. Training is therefore a big
must when it comes to successfully running a nursing home.
Not only
can care facilities disregard the patients’ needs for cleanliness and basic
personal hygiene, but the care facility itself may also be lacking cleanliness.
The physical environment is also an area
of concern for care homes where proper hygiene is important. It is possible that toilets, showers,
bathtubs, bathroom floors, and rooms are not properly sanitized. This can lead
to the propagation of germs which could ultimately cause disease and
infections.
The
kitchen area, where food is prepared and served to care home residents, is also
a place where it is vital to have the utmost cleanliness possible. The kitchen
staff needs to be properly dressed for the job and take all the necessary
measures to handle food hygienically. Also, the dining area needs to be
sanitized, including the tables, chairs, buffet tables, floors, and every other
area that is touched or handled by the residents.
Most aged
care facilities have insufficient number of caring staff thereby compromising
the caring standards. Lack of basic maintenance and janitors could be the cause
of poor cleanliness in caring facilities. Healthy patient-nurse ratio must be
maintained otherwise, the caring staff feels exhausted and they overlook
hygiene. When there are many urgent situations going on at once, a nurse might
forget to wash her hands between treating different patients. This is how germs
can easily spread throughout the facility, affecting everybody living there.
Management has the responsibility to train staff to take proper hygiene
measures to ensure the health of the residents. Care homes with the right
amount of trained staff are less likely to have issues with poor hygiene.
Cleanliness is of vital importance in this type of facility and cannot be
overlooked. Relatives who wish to admit their parents should be observant and
seek hygiene protocols of the facility and can also personally inspect the
facility. In many western countries, care facilities can be liable for improper
care of their patients due to lack of hygiene, which is not the case with our
country.
(Soumya Nair is from
Bangalore, India and is a practicing Social Gerontologist at
advantAGE seniors. She is the co-founder of this 17 year old company. She
has been a social gerontologist since 2002, which was her inspiration for
writing this well researched article. She loved being with her elderly
patients, and she wrote this article highlighting the importance of hygiene in
care facilities as she noticed the appalling conditions in few existing care
homes. She insists that the ‘consumer’ of long-term care definitely deserves
more personal hygiene and a clean environment.
Soumya hopes country’s long-term care needs overhauling changes so that
elders would receive the best treatment that is necessary and so much deserved
to elders.)