Are the curtains between beds ever cleaned?

[MedicalZebra]

This has been bugging me for a long time. I am in the hospital frequently because of ESRD, and even when I'm in there for a week, I have NEVER seen any of the curtains between patients' beds washed! I think they're missing a possible source of infection, because those curtains have sometimes been splashed with blood or bedpan contents... just another thing I dread touching in the hospital!

Do your hospitals wash the curtains? Or is it something no hospital does?

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Well, our are (supposedly) changed out once a week, but what good does that do with the possible parade of pts. that can come through a room in a week?

[begalli]

Ours are and I know when they are because they smell like a brand new shower curtain liner....they're plastic and disposable. They get wiped down by housekeeping after each patient and changed out bout once/mo or when they are really soiled.

I get grossed out when I look to the ceiling in our busy ICU. The spattering of fluids, whatever they may be, is just nasty. It happens, and as soon as something like this is noticed, it's cleaned up/painted of course.

[mommatrauma, RN]

Every two to three months, that get taken down and replaced with another set while the ones that were hanging were cleaned..

[prmenrs, RN]

When I did Infection Control, that was the #1 question asked of me by ER nurses! To my knowledge (and I don't pretend to be up to date on Infection Control literature), there haven't been any outbreaks documented to originate from cubicle curtains. That being said, the public expects hospitals to present a clean environment.

Hence, my answer: If they're dirty, change them.

[flashpoint]

My hospital says they are not a huge source of infection. However...our patient rooms don't have them...rooms are considered semi-private because patients share a bathroom that is in between two rooms. The ER rooms have them and they are cleaned weekly on a rotating schedule, whenever they are soiled, whenever there was a patient in the room who should have been on contact, droplet, or airborne precautions, or whenever someone dies in the room. Don't know why they are cleaned simply because someone dies...neither housekeeping or infection control can explain that one...:)

[OntCaRPN]

Ours are cleaned in a regular rotation and if we ask (in the case of visible soil) and if the person turns out to have a bug of some sort.

[nurseklw72]

The facility I work in only takes the curtains down to wash them if the units ask housekeeping to do a "terminal clean". Usually, this is after a patient placed on isolation is discharged. Other than that, the curtains never come down.

[mtymom]

EWWWW! I will never touch one of those curtains again!