Camden New Journal - News: Hospitals dirty secret

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Camden New Journal - by ROISIN GADELRAB
Published: 20 September 2007

Annette Jeanes

Coming clean: Hospital’s dirty secrets revealed

‘UCL is losing the fight against viruses’

CLEANERS sleeping on the job, doctors not washing their hands and patients waiting by bedsides for the space to become vacant – an expert in infection control has revealed the harsh reality behind the glossy image of University College London Hospital.
Annette Jeanes, director of infection control at the Bloomsbury hospital, said she is battling to keep MRSA and virus C-difficile at bay under impossible conditions.
She described how patients are rushed through to meet government targets and cleaners are overworked, underpaid and ignored by their more qualified colleagues.
Ms Jeanes said: “We’re teaching cleaners to wash their hands and they say ‘that’s interesting, why don’t you teach the doctors?’. I spend a lot of time teaching doctors to wash their hands, but the doctors are not that interested. They think they save lives and that’s enough.”
She said a consultant from the United States had to be flown in recently just to get the message across, adding: “We had tried to engage doctors but they just weren’t interested. We got a company to pay for it. The doctors came in droves. They ate the food, came to see the guru and listened. If they don’t listen to their own experts we’ll get someone they will listen to.”
Ms Jeanes was speaking at a patient forum meeting at the Town Hall. When it comes to cleaning commodes, she said: “The cleaner says ‘it’s not their job’, the nurse says ‘I’ve been trained now to almost do minor surgery and it’s not my job’. There’s a norm of acceptance of non-compliance.
“You have a lot of autonomous people in important roles.”
Ms Jeanes said cases of C-difficile, the virus that can cause severe bouts of diarrhoea and is potentially deadly, are rising because the hospital takes in patients from all over the country.
She said: “Last year five people required bowel removal operations.
“At least three of them survived. Patients with C-diff are competing for isolation with people who have MRSA.”
Cleaners don’t feel it’s their place to tell doctors when they are interrupting their work, Ms Jeanes told the meeting.
“The people we’re employing are on very low wages,” she said. “Many have two or three jobs. At times 60 per cent were agency staff. It’s not unusual to find them falling asleep on the job.”
The introduction of 18-week targets and payment-by-results has forced the hospital to push as many people through the doors as possible, she warned, leading to an even heavier workload for cleaners.
Ms Jeanes said: “Operations are going through faster, but that doesn’t come without a cost in infection control. It’s about getting people through and there are financial imperatives. People expect to walk in and for it to be like the Ideal Homes exhibition. We’ve got people in wheelchairs next to beds waiting for the next person to leave so they can get in. Some of the wards have 70 beds.”
She said the hospital is now turning to more futuristic ways of combatting infections.
Ms Jeanes said: “We will have machines which tell staff to measure how many times they wash their hands.”

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