The Focal Person – Infectious Prevention and Control (IPC) unit of University of Nigeria Teaching Hosipital, Ituku -Ozalla Enugu, Dr. Kachy Ugwa, has noted that proper hand hygiene among workers in the health facilities is a culture that needs to be sustained especially at the point of care irrespective of the disease condition or diagnosis of the patient.
Speaking at the sensitization walk held within the hospital at the just concluded World Hand Hygiene Day 2022 which tagged “UNITE FOR SAFETY – CLEAN YOUR Hands,“ Dr Ugwa said that effective hand hygiene is an individual effort and should be an institutional culture for every health professional within the health facility adding that concerted efforts to make it a habit in compliance with its set of procedures for hand hygiene should be made.
He stressed that by doing so, Health care associated Infections can be significantly reduced.
He added that: “Statistics from the World Health Organization shows that millions of people are affected by healthcare-associated infections leading to the death of 1 out of 10 infected patients, thus hand hygiene is critical to reducing these infections.”
Dr. Ugwa reiterated that “to prioritize clean hands in health facilities, people at all levels need to believe in the importance of hand hygiene and IPC to save lives, by acting as key players in achieving the appropriate behaviours and attitudes towards it. In other words, health workers at all levels and people accessing health care facilities need to unite on ensuring clean hands.
Also Speaking on the importance of hand hygiene, the Head, Infection Prevention and Control Unit at UNTH , Asso. Professor Babatunde Omotowo said hand hygiene in health care setting is different from that of the community.
“The health care worker has five critical moments to observe hand hygiene, and this include before touching a patient, after touching the patient or his surroundings, when in contact with body fluid or urine of a patient and before any procedure,” he said.
In his remarks, the Chief Medical Director of UNTH Enugu, Professor Obinna Onodugo said the management will continue to support the unit to achieve an infection free hospital, noting that there has been tremendous effort in making sure of availability of constant water supply in the hospital.
The Alcohol based hand rub (ABHR), liquid soap and bleach are also part of the admission package for every patient in the whole wards and emergency rooms. The CMD on behalf of the Management donated 500 copies of Hand Hygiene posters as work mode reminders which would be pasted at different wards and clinic at hand hygiene stations.
The Focal Person for IPC in partnership with key stakeholders and members of the IPC team organized the sensitization walk as a way to commemorate the World Hand Hygiene Day by calling on healthcare workers to lead by example and encourage others to clean their hands during the discharge of their duties.
The Walk was also to encourage IPC practitioners to engage healthcare workers to partake in hand hygiene initiatives, facility managers to keep promoting a quality and safety culture to ensure clean hands , policy makers are encouraged to prioritize resources as well as trainings and programmes on hand hygiene and finally to people who use the healthcare, to lend their voices in the campaign of hand hygiene even as they practice hand hygiene.
The Sensitisation Walk took place on Thursday 5th of May in commemoration of the World Hand Hygiene Day. The walk saw the IPC Team alongside nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals joined by HODs and the Chief Medical Director as they walked around the expansive wards, departments and offices of UNTH with the message of Hand Hygiene.
