Global campaign highlights importance of hand hygiene to healthcare workforce, public
KUCHING: Hand hygiene is a practice that is vital not only for hospital staff members, but also for the family members of the patients.
According to state Health Department deputy director (medical) Dr Kamarudin Lajim, it is a known fact that diseaseborne germs like the MRSA, Acinetobacter, E. coli and Salmonella can spread through contact with contaminated hands.
In the case of hospital staff, this happens when they ( hospital staff) are in contact with patients, performing aseptic procedure, being exposed to the bodily fluids or risks from patients, and also when they are in the patient’s personal space.
With the alarming rise of the ‘superbugs’, or antibiotic resistant bacteria, over the last few years, the lack or non-practice of hand hygiene increases the risk of infection from superbugs by many folds; hence, this has become a daunting challenge for the healthcare workforce.
“Without effective control steps at the moment, we worry about facing problems in finding an antibiotic that is effective against such bacterial infection,” he said at the launch of the ‘World Hand Hygiene Day’ at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) here yesterday.
In line with this year’s theme ‘Fight Antibiotic Resistance: It’s In Your Hands’, the World Health Organisation ( WHO) has laid out several recommendations for those involved in healthcare across all levels.
They include the call on the healthcare staff to always clean their hands at the correct time and stop the spread of antibiotic resistance; while for the chief executive officers and hospital management, they should lead prevention programmes and infection control all year round to prevent patients from contracting resistant infections.
The World Hand Hygiene Day, which falls on May 5 every year, aims to highlight the importance of sanitised hands in healthcare. It also strives to get members of the public together towards supporting the effectiveness of hand hygiene at global level.
Dr Kamarudin said he hoped that everyone could work together to ensure the success of the campaign.
“Malaysia has been supporting this campaign since 2008, with various governmental and private agencies working hard to hold large- scale promotions through various approaches,” said Dr Kamarudin.
Meanwhile, SGH director Dr Chin Zin Hing said based on the monitoring by its infection control unit via annual audit, the hand hygiene practice at the hospital has reached the key performance indicator (KPI) of 75 per cent.
The audit is done every month across all departments by the Infection Control Nurses and Infection Control Practitioners.
The programmes include hand hygiene audit among the staff members, exhibitions, and demonstrations on the correct steps in hand-washing.
“That said, there is still room for improvements towards strengthening the awareness of hands hygiene. Without clean hands, there could be more serious infections, leading to the usage of more expensive antibiotics, longer hospital stays, rise in the rate of antibiotic resistance, as well as the increase in morbidity and mortality rates,” said Dr Chin.