FAQ Friday

Many surfaces in medical settings are contaminated with pathogens, including the privacy curtain. Patients in bed have coughed and sneezed (and those droplets have likely traveled the 4 feet to the curtain), patients have scratched what itched and touched the curtain, staff members touch the curtain with soiled gloves, visitors touch the curtain bringing in outside pathogens, doctors touch the curtain after examining other patients. The curtain is quite simply not clean (and is only taken down and laundered once or twice a year). This is why we wash our hands after providing privacy. We don’t want to contaminate our hands before touching the patient.

Most patients in medical settings are already ill or injured, which means that their immune system is already working on something else, somewhere else in the body. It is vital to protect that patient from other infections while they are receiving treatment. Infections acquired in the healthcare setting, known as nosocomial infections (also called healthcare acquired infections), affect an estimated 5-10% of all patients receiving treatment. That means that as many as 1 in 10 people in a hospital will become infected with something else while receiving medical care – usually because of healthcare workers! This could eventually cost the patient lots of money because of additional days in the hospital, additional medications and treatments and time lost from work. These additional infections can even become serious enough to result in death!