If YOU were the patient, would you feel comfortable...

[LifesAJourney]

Using the same bed and sharing a bathroom with a roommate like our regular patients do in a hospital? This thought just occured to me and I wanted to share it with my AN family! Personally, I would dread my whole stay there. I work as cna and knowing the number of bed changes we do with incontinent patients using washclothes to clean them up, it makes me cringe lol. I know our laundry dept does a great job of keeping our linens clean, but I can't imagine using the same sheets and towels to lay and bathe with knowing those same linens were used to clean up a patient with diarrhea! Don't even get me started with the bathrooms haha. Housekeeping cleans the rooms after a patient is discharged, so the rooms are sanitized, but how can I use the same toliet knowing a week ealier a patient with C-Diff had explosive diarrhea and it went everywhere. If I was a patient and had my own way, I would have a private room and bring my own linens and stack the toliet seat with those seat covers!

I'm not the kind of person that grosses out easily. Poop, urine, vomit, blood etc seen them all and still can hold a meal down But when it comes using those linens as a patient, knowing what I know, my stomach churns!

Soo...what are your thoughts?

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

This is why I sometimes just throw away c-diff washcloths that end up with a lot of poop on them. I know they're clean when they come back from laundry, but I still hate the thought of washing someone's face with it in the future.

But as far as the rest of it... no, it doesn't bother me. You just have to not think about it. Kinda like eating in a restaurant, using any public bathroom, sitting in a train, etc. There are endless gross-out possibilities in all those situations and more... IF you think about them!

[Jenni811, RN]

I cringe knowing where those washcloths had been. My fiance ruptured his spleen a year and a half ago playing Hockey. He was in the hospital for 4 days. i brought washcloths for him from home. He asked me too after i told him there isn't separate washcloths for people's faces and people's butts, they are only washed in between uses.

So i brought him some towels and such from home. EEEk, i would want that too if i were a patient. if i had a roommate i would disinfect the toliet before i used it. Carry around my bottle of Lysol :). i know its kinda the same concept of using a public restroom, but you have NO CLUE what your roommate has going on.

[I<3H2O, BSN, RN]

I have thought about this many a time. It grosses me out. We put chux pads on every bed and use them like a "draw sheet". So even if you are continent you are laying on one of those pads and you KNOW someone has peed and pooped on them in the past. :shudder:

[Florence NightinFAIL, BSN, RN]

I use the linen during night shift to sleep

[Stcroix, ASN, PhD, RN]

Ya, if you think of where the linens have been it is gross. But you also know that they were washed in large commercial machines at water temps and chlorine enough to kill anything. I can't site a reference, but I bet the linens in the hospital are less likely to have organisms on them than home laundry. What you are talking about is certainly a strong psychological issue, and valid for some.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Have your washcloths at home ever been used to wipe a bottom? Have your sheets ever encountered bodily fluids?

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I have honestly never seen 2 patients in 1 room. Our hospitals here have private rooms in all 4 hospitals and all my times as a patient I have never shared a room. They are cleaned very good after a discharge and the plastic mattresses are Cavi wiped really well or something equal to that is used. I know linens and stuff are disinfected as well.

[Jenni811, RN]

Have your washcloths at home ever been used to wipe a bottom? Have your sheets ever encountered bodily fluids?

No. we have separate wash cloths for ones to shower with and ones for faces. I would never give my guests a wash cloth i know someones butt was wiped with.

And it is not necessarily fearing my OWN body fluids, but its the idea of a wash cloth being wiped on someone elses and then on my own face.

Im just saying.....it's just a personal opinion. You feel free to wipe your face with whatever you want, or sleep on whatever you want.

[Jenni811, RN]

I have honestly never seen 2 patients in 1 room. Our hospitals here have private rooms in all 4 hospitals and all my times as a patient I have never shared a room. They are cleaned very good after a discharge and the plastic mattresses are Cavi wiped really well or something equal to that is used. I know linens and stuff are disinfected as well.

yea, ours are disinfected in bleach too but that still doesn't make me feel any better. It could be autoclaved and i wouldn't use them.

Private room hospitals would be amazing!!! we are currently in the process of building a new building where the hospital will be transferred to, and its all going to be private rooms, every room set with ceiling lifts that can even get the patient into the bathroom

[Katie5]

When you're that sick, you don't care.You just want to get better and the heck out of there.

[TakeTwoAspirin, MSN, RN, APRN]

I have been a patient many times, and have to say that this has never really crossed my mind. Like someone else said, these days if you are in a hospital you are generally pretty sick.

Honestly, even now I think about it I would worry more about the linen in hotels. At least in the hospital you know those linens are changed and are cleaned with the assumption that they are germ filled. In other words, they don't spare the bleach. I know that they "steam press" the wrinkles out of some of the linens in hotels rather than wash heavy comforters and over-blankets rather than wash them every day. Now THAT does creep me out!