Many healthcare workers attempt to cut time by cutting corners; and this includes the cleaning staff responsible for disinfecting the rooms after the patients are discharged. Frequently, the cleaning is substandard. A single occupancy room, used as an “isolation” room for an MRSA infected patient, does not get the proper cleaning after the patient is discharged into the community (often times WITH the MRSA infection, out into the public).

So in addition to nursing and physician staff that don't follow proper hand washing and sterile field procedures, you have cleaning staff also cutting corners. Part of this has to do with being so overwhelmed by being understaffed for the level of care; they believe that they can work faster if they just cut one little corner, no harm done, right? In their minds anyway, and doctors and nurses alike convince themselves of that. I shudder at the dirty white coats doctors are so fond of wearing, as a symbol of status-the germs I can imagine swimming on those things are enormous. Why change your hospital scrubs every day, or several times a day, if your just going to put a dirty jacket over it? Make sense to anyone?

Furthermore, let's talk about inpatient physical therapy rooms. How often are they disinfected? Patients with open wounds and seeping wounds frequent these places, share mats and equipment, with very little to no disinfection in between. What about the wheelchairs shared between patients, with no disinfecting in-between? Or, the sharing of a bathroom in a double patient room. I'm sure these are not good practices. Privacy curtains are not changed between patients, even though they are frequently touched by dirty physician and nurse hands, pulling the curtain back for a patient's privacy, but also spreading germs… ready for the next patient.

My best and most disgusting observation is the operating room one. In the OR, many surgeons choose to use cloth drapes over the patient instead of the paper drapes; not much of a problem, except that the surgeons actually STAPLE the cloth drapes DIRECTLY TO THE PATIENT!!! So you get not only disrespect of a human being's body in lieu of physician preference, but you also get an additional wound here and there from the staples they used, which opens your body up for more entry sites for infection. Sometimes, I have found the staples STILL stapled to the patient on return from recovery; they didn't even bother taking them out, just ripping the cloth drapes off the patient!! I only touched on a few items I have personally experienced/seen. The more people know, the more empowered they will be. Hopefully, we can make our hospitals and health care safer.
Cheers.