Linens in hospital rooms

[sapphire]

The manager of our hospital L & D unit does not allow us to keep linens in the patient rooms. She claims it is a 'state law'. I cannot find any such law and even the CDC does not have direction on this. I have worked in 3 other hospitals in this state where we kept linens stocked in the rooms in drawers or closets, in fact is was part of our job to keep the drawers stocked. Does anyone have any insight on this? It's a pain because our linen room is some distance away and with the frequent linen/gown changes we put on a lot of miles just running for linens. The state is Michgan. Thanks!

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

When a patient is discharged, anything like extra linens, any type of supplies, etc., is considered contaminated. If it has been in a patient's room, it can't be taken out of the room and used for someone else, unless of course it is an IV machine or something that can be cleaned or disinfected. Maybe that is what she meant but said it wrong?

[bugya90, ASN, BSN, LVN, RN]

We don't keep extra linens in the rooms. Like above poster said, when they discharge anything in the room is contaminated and it is a waste of resources.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

It is not a law of the State of Michigan or State of the USA but some private state which exists exclusively in your NM's head.

The question is, can anything be done about it.

P.S. I am in Michigan, worked in many places, everywhere it was ok and expected practice. After discharge, everything was sent to laundry service.