SCRUBS AND BUGS

SCRUBS AND BUGS

Hospital scrubs are the fashion and worn everywhere by medical personnel.  They shop in them, eat in them, and wear them home.  Rarely are they laundered at home.  The scrubs however, carry every resistant bug found in hospitals, emergency rooms, and intensive care units.

Because you can’t see the bacteria, doesn’t mean they are not present.  These resistant super bugs are escaping into your restaurants, shops, and even in your homes.  If your resistance is down, you may get the bug. 

Staph bacteria can live up tot 56 days on a lab coat.  Clostridia diff. sickens over a half million people a year. It is not killed by regular laundry detergents but requires bleach to kill them.   Every hospital surface has contaminants.

20 years ago, the hospitals laundered the scrubs and it was not allowed to leave the unit without changing the scrub uniform.   You were prohibited from wearing them outside the hospital building.

Today hospital personnel wear scrubs from their homes as they drive to the hospital.  They go out to lunch with uniforms contaminated by hospital bacteria.  You sit down and get the bugs they leave on restaurant tables, utensils, doorknobs and in clothing stores. 

Imagine going into a restaurant after some hospital personnel in scrubs has left the germs on the table you sit at.  Rarely is the table even wiped off, and you place your utensils directly on the bare table.  The bug is swallowed with your sandwich.

If you are in a compromised immune state, you have set yourself up for a visit to a contaminated hospital and your life if jeopardized. 

And what about the doctor who works on his lawn and comes to visit you with his jeans?  

How about the expectant landscaping father who carries dirt on his shoes to the delivery room? 

What about the germs you and your family may bring to the hospital as you visit your immune compromised loved one in an intensive care unit?  

What about the poor premature infant that I is held by his loving father without a mask or boots?

With a rise in hospital infections, resistant bacteria, and postoperative infections, it is imperative that more restrictions be placed on personnel leaving hospitals with hospital scrubs.  It’s bad enough that the hospitals breed bacteria.  We shouldn’t have to find them on our sandwiches at our favorite food place.

        Source: National hospital survey, Hudson Institute, Committee to Reduce infection Deaths, Nov. 2008

What do you think?  Your comments are always appreciated.

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