Maybe I'm just ignorant, and this may be an ongoing trend; however, it seems pretty skinflint-ish. They blamed the decision on the fact that B&G had to remove the wipes (which are not flushable) from the system a small #of times. I may be ignorant of plumbing systems but running a snake thru the system occasionally doesn't seem to warrant this sort of change.
The biggest issue I have is that I work in a satellite building, far enough away where we do not have access to central supply or housekeeping. It has a lot of incontinence issues.
They implemented this change without first having another system of peri-care in place. There are no separate hand towels for BM, there is no designated Washer for BM soiled linen, there is no wash basin to get the excess BM off the FACE TOWELS that we are forced to use to cleans peoples hinders. I asked if the building could just buy some flushable wipes until we get something setup and received a "ugh... I'm not sure" with no follow up so residents are forced to use the same towels on their face and butts.
There is no bleach to use in the buildings consumer-grade washing machine due to multicolor hand towels.
This seems really gross to me, anyone else or am I just a poop/face-averse weirdo
(frankly I've just been using 3 paper-towels from the dispenser in the bathrooms, wetting/ringing it out and using the peri-cleanser we have)
We have peri cloths (that are green) and are washed seperatly from personal clothing and towels (which are white). That is horrifying to me but I know that many facilities don't have the kind of funding needed for this. What would they do in an outbreak??? Is this facilty audited or watched over by anyone? None of the families have caught on to you using the face towels to do peri care???
you are in a bit of a pickle, as your Infection control person is probably also your DON, or some such.
In the hospital we only have wash cloths. (and now we have the disposible bath things.) They are used for every body part imaginable...but they are laundered by the hospital laundry under really rather strict conditions, and they do not have stains on them.
Long before disposables we just used washcloths. Of course, everything was bleached when it was washed. I cannot imagine any facility that didn't use bleach when washing linens.
Specializes in Trauma, ER, ICU, CCU, PACU, GI, Cardiology, OR.
at this level, after reading all previous post i suspect that the issue on hand has to do more with budget spending than anything else... then again isn't it always...just saying~
We have never had wipes. We have white washcloths that are used for everything. I assume they get bleached, but some of them are stained anyway. A lot of people (myself included) will simply "accidentally" roll the really nasty ones in a brief and throw them out rather than rinse them in the hopper. I don't think it's that gross to wash someone's face with a cloth that had previously touched someone's crotch as long as it was bleached, but still... an orange c-diff stain is too much. And for some reason, my facility's policy is that we are to use a very high number of washcloths per person during AM care. So... we run out of linens quickly. Management will catch on to our linen-trashing ways, and restrict the available washcloths even more. By 10 o'clock when I'm doing my incontinence rounds we'll be washing bottoms with pillowcases, bibs, socks. It's ridiculous. And heaven forbid we get caught using paper towels or tissue to wash someone- those are expensive!
Specializes in Orthopedic, LTC, STR, Med-Surg, Tele.
GROSS. In a hospital??
We only actually got wipes a year ago, and they make life SO much easier. Before we used facecloths if we had to do peri-care. They bleach them so all the softness is gone from them. Hard and scratchy. Ugh
Thunda
59 Posts
memory care so that's not an option (though I like the idea)