This article is from page 16 of the 2005-11-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
HAND hygiene in the accident and emergency department of Ennis General Hospital is one of the poor- est in the country, and the worst in the Mid-West Region, at 32 per one
According to the first national au- dit of hygiene practices in the coun- try’s hospitals, published in the past week, the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Ennis, has a 100 per cent cleanliness rate when handling and disposing of linen from ICU. This unit was rated the cleanest area of the hospital and described as hav- ing a “fair” standard of cleanliness.
Ennis was also found to have a “good” method of disposing of and handling sharp objects, with a rate of 89 per cent.
However, the remaining areas of the hospital were regarded as hav- ing “poor” hygiene, with A&E re- cording the lowest standard at 62 per cent.
Hand hygiene at the hospital was found to be worryingly “poor” in all areas except ICU, which record- ed an 86 per cent cleanliness rate. Hand hygiene in the surgical and medical wards was only rated at 59 per cent.
The handling and disposal of de-
partmental waste was also low at 57 per cent, while disposal of waste from the ICU recorded a low 47 per cent. The 88-bed hospital was also recorded in the audit as having 94 beds.
While in-house cleaners cater for the hygiene needs of Ennis, the au- dit insisted that whether cleaning
was carried out in-house or con- tracted was no guarantee of good or bad hygiene.
The national audit was conducted over July and August 2005, and vis- its by auditors were random and un- announced.
Hospitals were given an overall score, indicating a good (85 per cent
or above), fair (76 per cent to 84 per cent) or poor (75 per cent or below) standard. Accordingly, nine per cent of hospitals visited received a good rating, 43 per cent were rated as fair and 48 per cent were consid- ered poor.
Two further national audits are due to be carried out in 2006.