Letter: No obvious cleaning of medical equipment
Over the last three weeks my family and I have spent many hours by a bed in a Shropshire hospital comforting an elderly parent.
Whilst sitting for hours on end I watched the daily life of a hospital ward and the comings and goings of staff carrying out their duties, cleaners, meal trollies, newspapers and various other essential services.
In an attempt to keep the wards reasonably germ free there are numerous hand gel dispensers for use by visitors, which is a good idea, as long as they are used.
One very essential duty we watched every day was the nurse with a trolley that monitors blood pressure, temperature and heart rate. This entails a clip which fits on a finger, a band which is wrapped around a bare arm and a probe which is applied to the patient's forehead.
This trolley goes from bed to bed checking every patients vital signs, I don't know how many beds this trolley visits, but there were six beds in this ward and many others on that floor. I never saw any cleaning of the instruments I previously mentioned between beds, so any germs, viruses or infections, could so easily be spread from one patient to the next.
This is in no way criticism of the care in the wards it is just an observation, maybe these instruments were sterilised out of view and one can only hope they were.
K J Glover
Caerhowel
Montgomey
