Hospitals Struggle to Fight Drug-Resistant Superbugs

Hospitals are supposed to be the place where people can be cured or have their pain and suffering eased. Every day, hospitals treat people with a variety of different illnesses and diseases. Some of these are common and have a certain type of treatment that is proven to help. Others, though, are more severe, and they’re harder to treat, if at all.

Because hospitals see a variety of different people on a daily basis, they are filled with a plethora of viruses and bacteria. In some instances, these viruses and bacteria are known as superbugs, which are illnesses that are resistant to drugs and other types of treatment. People who suffer from these superbugs either have to ride it out until they are naturally cured of the disease, they need to learn how to manage living their life with an incurable disease, or they eventually succumb to it.

Although hospitals struggle with superbugs, there are a few small steps they can take to ensure that the bug doesn’t spread to other patients in the hospital.

Private Rooms

In order to treat more people, many hospitals place multiple patients in one room. While this does allow more people to be treated, it does also increase the risk of healthcare-associated infections. Patients that share rooms have a higher chance of catching the other patient’s illness if it’s airborne. To deter this, it’s a good idea for hospitals to ensure that patients receive private rooms whenever possible. If room sharing is required, it’s important that hospitals try to give private rooms to those patients who do have a severe and contagious illness, including superbugs. This will minimize the risk of other patients catching the illness and having a full-blown epidemic occur in the hospital.

Privacy Curtains

If hospitals cannot give patients private rooms, it’s important that they use privacy curtains to at least try to deter the spread of hospital-associated infections. However, it’s also important that hospitals understand that their curtains can be a petri dish for bacteria, which means they need to change these regularly to ensure that they are clean and sanitary. Ensuring that these are regularly cleaned can help the hospital reduce the spread of HAIs as well as superbugs, which will keep their patients safer throughout their stay.

Cleaning

Regular cleaning of the hospital is very important when it comes to stopping a superbug from spreading. Most hospitals have a dedicated staff that is trained in cleaning and sanitizing rooms. Make sure that your staff is up to date on all the standard practices when it comes to ensuring health and safety as well as cleanliness. Using the right tools and training the right people can elevate the level of cleaning found in your hospital, which can immensely lower the risk of a superbug contamination in your facility.

Sanitation

Along with ensuring that your staff properly cleans the rooms, it’s also important that your front-line employees also follow sanitation practices. For example, make sure that nurses and doctors are taking the right precautions when treating patients. Ensure they wash their hands or use latex gloves to reduce the spread of infection. Wearing masks can also decrease the spread of a superbug. Depending on the severity of the bug, ensuring that staff wear hazmat suits or other forms of full-body protection is also important. The more precautions you staff can take when dealing with patients, especially those with a drug-resistant disease, the better chance your hospital will have of keeping the disease from wreaking havoc on the rest of your hospital.