Is your hospital DIRTY ??? Does housekeeping clean the empty room and bath in

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Jul 26, 2005

oh PS wouldnt it be nice if while housekeeping was 'cleaning' the rooms they would turn the tv off, stop yapping on the phone and stop entertaining their co-worker who is comfortably lounging in the chair while they 'clean'!!!!

Wouldn't it be nice that when some people did this that ALL of the employees didn't catch heck for it?

tirramisue · Jul 26, 2005

The hospital I'm at just recently started using this thing called bioquell (http://www.bioquell.com/) after we had a bad few weeks with a norovirus. I love this thing, it looks very furturistic-the room gets completely sealed up and the bioquell machine runs overnight-you can just hear the little bastard germs dying!! Our housekeeping dept is great, but there are just some surfaces that are difficult to clean and this bioquell thing kills the tough bugs.

meownsmile, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2005

Well hopfully all this will slowly get better. JAHCO is going to start making unannounced visits starting this fall it think. I just sat on a committe that was putting together educational guidelines for staff so when the unannounced visits start we dont completely blow it. I know it supposedly has been unannounced visits up to this point, but now they can come back into a facility at ANY time.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Jul 26, 2005

Hopefully the thing with Joint Commission won't be like the state visits, where one facility calls the other facilities to alert them that the suits are in town.

gauge14iv, MSN, APRN, NP · Jul 26, 2005

The thing that gets me about the bioquell, and the antibacterial apray our facility used - the housekeepers would spray that stuff on a surface and then that was it - they wouldnt wipe, they'd just figure the spray did the job. The same thing happens with bio-quell eqipment. They figure since it's germ free, they don't need to wipe up any grunge....

passing thru · Jul 30, 2005

all i can say is I'll have to be awful danged sick before I go to a hospital.

Our hospital is over-run with mrsa. The long term staffers even comment on things like,............. " Mr. Smith has mrsa. He didn't have it when he came in, but now he does. EVERY patient who is admitted to that room , room # 1014, ALWAYS GETS MRSA. THE bug is in the room.... they've tried to get it out, but it is still there. "

We have 4 rooms on our unit with that reputation....

c-diff - - - lots............

vre - - - not quite as much....

lots of infections.............. lotsa dirt and grime....

very few housekeepers.................

If the public knew, there would be hell to pay ............

SmilingBluEyes · Jul 30, 2005

all i can say is I'll have to be awful danged sick before I go to a hospital.
Our hospital is over-run with mrsa. The long term staffers even comment on things like,............. " Mr. Smith has mrsa. He didn't have it when he came in, but now he does. EVERY patient who is admitted to that room , room # 1014, ALWAYS GETS MRSA. THE bug is in the room.... they've tried to get it out, but it is still there. "
We have 4 rooms on our unit with that reputation....
c-diff - - - lots............
vre - - - not quite as much....
lots of infections.............. lotsa dirt and grime....
very few housekeepers.................
If the public knew, there would be hell to pay ............

I think that is the problem; they don't. But then do they care too LOOK into it?

Again, it's much easier and more convenient to blame those "nasty nurses"---forget about docs who roam room to room w/o washing hands, or family members who don't respect and observe isolation precautions.....

it's a multi-faceted problem, needing a more multi-discipinary approach. And something beyond a joke group like JCAHO overseeing it all. :angryfire

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Jul 30, 2005

I think that is the problem; they don't. But then do they care too LOOK into it?
Again, it's much easier and more convenient to blame those "nasty nurses"---forget about docs who roam room to room w/o washing hands, or family members who don't respect and observe isolation precautions.....
it's a multi-faceted problem, needing a more multi-discipinary approach. And something beyond a joke group like JCAHO overseeing it all. :angryfire

Too true, here in Uk they are also suspecting visitors bring it in too. We have alcohol gel on entry to ward and in each room and visitors are advised to use it when they arrive and when they leave.

blueheaven · Jul 30, 2005

10 minutes ???
There was a big article in last Sundays' Houston Chronicle about the nationwide problem with nosocomial infections in hospitals............ (the infections you get when you went into the hospital for something else ! ) And 100,000 people - Americans - die from annually.
Our unit has LOTS OF VRE, MRSA, etc., etc.,
Lots of surgical wounds with infections....
Naturally, .....in the article, the nurses were responsible. !
Naturally, the article said MORE handwashing by the nurses would diminish or cure the problem.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!
I frequently observe and time the house keeping dept. folks when they enter a discharged patients' room to clean it .... it takes them 10 minutes !!
I'm not blaming them ......
MANAGEMENT has cut housekeepings' budget, their staff, their time to clean a room - - bed -floor -bathroom - - to ten minutes.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!
(20 years ago it was 30 minutes for each room.)
Listen to this, ....................
last April, the CEO of my hospital held his annual meetings with the staff. these are held in small groups of about 30 employees, until all employees have had their chance to attend the meetings.
Well, the PURPOSE of these annual meetings is so us staff peons can tell the big shots what's bugging us !!
(no management folks attend.)
We are encouraged '"" TO UNLOAD - SPEAK UP - TELL THE BIG BOSS WHAT'S BUGGING US"", AND HE GUARANTEEES no recriminations.... (what's said in the meeting stays there.)
Well, REPEATEDLY, the # 1 big problem the employees complained about ??
""The hospital is DIRTY . ""
That was the very words used and examples given by many many employees.
The CEO seemed shocked, seemed rather surprised to hear this as the foremost problem seen by employees.
Of course he promised to check into it and TAKE ACTION !
It is nearly August now, the hospital is still dirty...
It isn't obvious dirt................. if you walked onto my unit, you would not notice obvious dirt.............................
The place simply isn't cleaned as it should be... although every day there's a guy pushing a noisy wax-buffer machine down the halls.
I'm thinking about sending this to the newspaper.
And, yeah, all those doorknobs, toilet seats, computer keyboards, medication carts, phones , desktops, pt. beds and bed rails, pillows, i.v. poles, feeding pump poles, med cart tops, etc., etc, and pt room floors - - (ever see the bottom of a wastebasket?)
my hospital is filthy and
if I'm admitted I'm taking my own sanitizors.
Too bad the article dumped the blame on us nurses...............
I've had red cracked hands for 20 years....
I need help from housekeeping and management, not MORE handwashing.
The "public " is watching US when they come into the hospitals,
hell, I'm the cleanest thing they will encounter during their stay !!

Well, I have noticed that PHYSCIANS are THE WORST with handwashing etc. They also rarely clean their stethoscopes.

I had a post op patient that had an open wound that needed packed. Now back in my early days, you didn't poke around in ANY wound without sterile gloves. This MD used regular gloves, poked around in the wound and low and behold he spiked a temp, got very septic within 6 hours. WHat ever happened to using sterile technique for dressing changes etc??? Housekeeping also is not great in the last 2 hospitals I have worked at.

fergus51 · Jul 30, 2005

I've been very dissapointed in cleanliness since I moved to California. Our housekeeping staff in Ontario was great for the most part. I saw them mopping the floor every single shift I worked. I haven't seen it ONCE since I moved here (apparently they only do it once during day shift). Nurses are responsible for washing each bedspace once a shift and washing the inside of the isolettes which are only changed once a month (we changed them every week in Ontario), but when things are busy it's the first duty that gets pushed aside.

I sometimes think you get what you pay for because our housekeeping dept in Ontario was well paid for their work. Here it's all minimum wage workers who seem to care less about cleanliness. I also wonder if Toronto's brush with SARS is what made everyone so hygiene conscious.

redwinggirlie · Jul 30, 2005

I hear your point. I make it my point to take those antimicrobial wipes with me in my patient's rooms when I go in and do my own housecleaning. We get to talk, I can see what supplies they have, throw out undated things and know that while housekeeping may not have done a great job, perhaps neither did those docs, families, visitors, lab wash their hands. It takes everyone in the place to keep it clean.

Don't get me started on those people who enter MRSA or VRE rooms "for just a second" who don't gown/glove up. Just plain irresponsible.

**RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN** · Jul 30, 2005

You really SHOULD write a letter to the editor...call the investigative news channel etc and give them the lowdown, and tell them to find out how many housekeepers per patient day or per patient bed are employed there....

I agree