Challenges With Cleaning Medical and Health Care Facilities

With the spread of COVID-19, or Corona virus, across the world, we’re seeing hospitals and other medical facilities inundated with patients. With more patients, not only does the health system struggle to cope, but more people may become infected. Cleanliness in medical facilities has never been more important.

Anyone entering the premises, including doctors, nurses, patients, visitors and cleaning staff is a means for the virus to spread. Hospitals and medical facilities, therefore, need to be thoroughly cleaned each day, if not multiple times a day. This includes safely disposing of potentially contaminated material, like gloves and medical masks, as well as sterilizing medical equipment.

Why is cleaning important at hospitals?

Just as we clean our homes, hospitals need
to be disinfected to stop the spread of viruses and bacteria that can make us
sick.

By following correct procedure and keeping
hospitals clean, we:

• Minimize the risk of cross-infection: Germs can’t survive in a sterile and disinfected environment. It then becomes harder for people to transmit viruses or bacteria.
• Avoid undesired media attention: If there is a pattern of people getting sick in a place where they should be recovering, it will become common knowledge. People may choose to go elsewhere for treatment and the health facility may end up closing.
• Reduce patient dissatisfaction: In conjunction with the above point, if you went to hospital to fix a broken bone and contracted a serious virus, you would be rightly upset. You may then encourage others to no longer use that hospital.
• Occupational health and safety problems: A high risk of cross-infection is not only a threat for patients and visitors to the hospital but also the workers. This can lead to union intervention and further unwanted media attention.

Medical facilities and hospitals should be cleaned by professional commercial cleaners. They have the training, equipment and experience to appropriately clean these high-risk environments. To ensure that cleaning is being completed to a high standard, their work must be regularly and thoroughly audited.

Commercial cleaners should also be aware of the risk inherent to different areas of the hospital. Within a hospital, an area can be low risk to very high risk. Categorizing areas by risk can help cleaners prioritize duties and ensure cleaning requirements are met.

Very High-Risk Areas: critically important to clean

Places like operating theaters, invasive procedure areas, intensive care units, nurseries, special needs patient areas and any central sterilizing departments are very high-risk areas. This is where the risk of disease transmission is at the highest. Those infected may also be the most at risk.

These areas should be frequently cleaned and to a high degree. Rules should be strictly followed, and adherence to rules should be regularly checked. Auditing should also happen frequently to ensure this.

Additionally, as many of these areas will have patients undergoing or recovering from invasive operations, care needs to be given to ensure equipment is sterilized and remains so. This includes equipment like scalpels and needles. Sterilization helps to prevent infections and the spread of viruses and bacteria.

To ensure very high-risk areas are not contaminated, places like bathrooms, corridors, storerooms and any other rooms with direct access to very high-risk areas must also be thoroughly and frequently cleaned. They should be treated as very high-risk areas too.

High-Risk Areas: highly important to clean

High-risk areas include places like sterile stock storage; emergency departments; specialist pharmacies; and general wards like CCU (Cardiac Care Units), oncology, delivery and birthing suites; and non-invasive procedure rooms.

Patients in these rooms may also undergo invasive procedures, and there is a high risk of infections and disease transmission.

These rooms, including the surrounding areas, therefore, must be cleaned correctly and frequently.

The surgical equipment and other supplies used by the doctors and nurses must also be sterilized and remain sterile to avoid cross-infection.

As with very high-risk areas, anywhere that has direct access to high-risk areas, like corridors, must be cleaned to the same standard.

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Moderate-Risk Areas: very important to clean

Moderate-risk areas include day activity areas, residential accommodation, outpatient clinics, laboratories, general pharmacies, cafeterias, kitchens, pantries, mortuaries and public spaces, among others.

Thorough cleaning of these rooms minimizes the risk of spreading viruses or bacteria that can come from outside visitors. It also ensures a reduced risk of transmission from patients to outside visitors.

Any direct access areas to these rooms must be cleaned to the same degree as that of moderate-risk areas.

Low-Risk Areas: important to clean

Cleaning low-risk areas is essential in maintaining proper hygiene throughout all medical facilities. Do not ignore places like administrative areas, non-sterile supply, record storage, plant rooms and external locations.

Not only does cleaning these areas help prevent cross-infection, but it is vital to maintaining the overall aesthetics of the facility. This can in still confidence in workers, patients and visitors.

Any rooms with direct access to these areas like balconies, elevators, bathrooms, pantries, cafeterias, offices and lounges should be cleaned to an equal degree.

Final Words:

No one visits a hospital on a whim. It is a place for healing and care, but it is also somewhere viruses and bacteria can easily spread if not properly cleaned. Just as residential cleaning and office cleaning keeps us safe in our day-to-day lives, cleaning in medical facilities should be treated as a health precaution. Cleaning in these spaces should be treated as high priority to help stop the spread of viruses and bacteria, especially during the current pandemic.