Buying your own scrubs.... hygienic????

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Hi, there's something I've been wondering about. Here in Denmark, our uniforms are supplied by the hospital we work at. At the end of the day we change out of them into our own clothing, and the uniform goes into a laundry bag. We don a freshly washed uniform every day. We are not allowed to wear our work shoes/ or uniform outside the hospital. This all about hygiene of course.

So, I don't really understand why things are so different in the states. When I have been home visiting ffamily in Tx I've seen hospital staff running around town in their scrubs...

I dunno, seems kinda yucky to me. I mean, I wouldn't want to wear my scrubs in my own home. Is there something I'm missing here?

Whaddya'll think??

les

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Specializes in Utilization Management.

I asked our Quality Team the same question. I wish our system was like yours!

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I think every hospital should adopt a policy like Denmark's. Yes, wearing scrubs home that we've all worked in is rather disgusting; I personally don't do it. I change before I leave.

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I wish I would have paid more attention when I heard it, but a few months ago I heard about a case where this pt developed some weird infection and they finally traced it back to dog hair that had come froma nurse's uniform. I would LOVE IT if they would supply me with a clean uniform every day. Do you guys have to pay a fee at all to have them provided? At my hospital only OB and surgery gets them to wear.

Jessica

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These are some of my friends!

I think it's a terribly unhygenic practice but it's cheaper for the hospital -- and that's the reason why hospitals don't supply scrubs for the nurses for the most part.

I take them home with me after every ED shift...makes my skin crawl. I leave my shoes at work and wear an everyday pair to/from the locker room, but still...yuck

Well, if anybody needs me, I'll be washing my car with bleach... :chuckle

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how are you supposed to wash your scrubs if you do have to wear them home?

when i get home from work (i'm a SN and work now as an aide in LTC) i feel like washing myself in bleach...take my shoes off at the door ...and wash my stuff ASAP in HOT water and in the dryer. however, how clean does the stuff actually get?

i wish we could wear all white just so i could use bleach!

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U.S. hospitals are too cheap to provide scrubs for all their staff.

And I'd be willing to bet that many, if not most of the people you see running around town in scrubs are NOT nurses. They probably don't even work in a hospital. You can buy scrubs at walmart for heaven's sake! Most people who work in their scrubs cannot wait to get out of them. I certainly wouldn't scamper around wearing them on my offtime. Yuck!

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how are you supposed to wash your scrubs if you do have to wear them home?

when i get home from work (i'm a SN and work now as an aide in LTC) i feel like washing myself in bleach...take my shoes off at the door ...and wash my stuff ASAP in HOT water and in the dryer. however, how clean does the stuff actually get?

i wish we could wear all white just so i could use bleach!

We used to have an inservice yearly at the agency I used to work for. The agency did both home health and facility staffing. We were told that using a disinfectant such as bleach in a ratio of 10 :1 was fine. I also follow up with 20 minutes in a HOT dryer.

Laura

PS I was once told that a nurse should NEVER wear her work shoes inot the house, but leave them on the doorstep.

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I wish I would have paid more attention when I heard it, but a few months ago I heard about a case where this pt developed some weird infection and they finally traced it back to dog hair that had come froma nurse's uniform. I would LOVE IT if they would supply me with a clean uniform every day. Do you guys have to pay a fee at all to have them provided? At my hospital only OB and surgery gets them to wear.

Jessica

Hi, in Dk the healthcare system is socialized, so everything is free. Our scrubs are therefore also a free service provided by the state in order to promote public health. We pay some whopping taxes though...:p .. les
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